


Of Crusaders and Defectors

by LiteralTrashHeap_Sry



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Death Trooper AU, F/M, Imperial Jyn Erso, Imperial!Jyn, Rebel Cassian
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2017-02-02
Packaged: 2018-09-12 13:16:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 30,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9073381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiteralTrashHeap_Sry/pseuds/LiteralTrashHeap_Sry
Summary: K-2 had told him this was the stupidest idea he had had to date--his chance of going undiscovered ranged between 12 to 14.5 percent. To Cassian, he was desperate enough to accept those odds. So the pair had found themselves on Coruscant, huddled up in the vacant room of an imperial turned informant that had vanished days prior--one Cole Belo. An Officer that just so happened to be stationed under the infamous Director Orson Krennic in his Coruscant offices.The plan was simple: sneak into the office of the director, plant a bug, leave. Nothing could go wrong.____________________________________While chasing after the rumors of a new planet-killing super weapon, the Rebellion didn't expect to uncover the existence of a program so secretive that General Draven himself had not heard whispers. The Empire has plans to reprogram and recondition normal citizens into loyal, mindless super soldiers - and the Rebellion has just met the prototype.Based on: "You might as well be a stormtrooper". Previously, "Death Trooper One"





	1. The Prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The beginning.
> 
> "God made man & his reason" - Young the Giant
> 
> UPDATE: Okay, So I realized that I didn't much like the direction the original plot was going, so I've reworked some things. I'm eternally sorry for the delay, but feel much more inspired now!

Jyn had always been a good daughter, or at least, she liked to think she had. She didn’t enjoy misbehaving; misbehaving meant making her mama or papa sad. She never wanted to do that to them. She loved her parents too much.

There were times when they were alone, or thought they were alone--unaware of their daughter lurking in the shadows, when she could hear their cries. They were always sad, or scared. They tried to hid it from her; they saved their sadness and hid it away. But Jyn had always been a smart girl. She could still see it in their eyes when they looked at each other--when they looked at her.

Because of this, she almost always did as she is told. Maybe she doesn’t do it right away, but her parents don’t expect her to. She’s only eight, after all. They trust her enough to get it done in due time, whatever it is they ask of her.

She knew she should have done as her mother asked, run away towards the bunker. Just like they had practiced so many times before this. When her father liked to pretend it was just a game. This time, she knew the truth. This wasn’t a game. Her mother wouldn’t have deserted her with that steeled look in her eye otherwise.

But, instead, she lay still. She tried to force herself to move, oh how she tried. But nothing was motivating to leave her family behind. She was scared, just as she knew her Papa was. The scary man in white and his black guards caused this. Everything had been fine, had been normal and perfect and as happy as could be, until they had arrived.

She glanced at the clearing behind her, where her mother had told her to run. The black monsters with guns were nowhere near her. This was her time. But as she stood, ready to run, she found she couldn’t leave her family. Not when she might never see them again--she wouldn’t be able to live with that kind of regret.

So, she clutched the small stormtrooper doll to her chest as she remained crouched on the ground. The grass that surrounded her tickled her face, making staying quiet that much more difficult. Her heart was already beating so loud that she feared they could already hear her. Any more noise could bring those dark-armored creatures closer to her hiding spot. She couldn’t risk that.

Across the valley she could see her father speaking to that man, that awful man in white. She remembered him from before--in the apartment in the never-ending city. The look he always had in his eye sent chills down her spine. It was a look that dreamed of destruction and death--the look of an Imperial Officer. She knew her mother felt the same way about him. Therefore, she wasn’t being bad for not liking him if Mama didn’t too.

Movement across the valley caught her eye, as well as those of everyone else occupying the valley. Her mother emerged into view, carrying the supplies she had taken out of the pack before handing it over to Jyn. She knew her mother well enough to recognize the determination in her steps. The resistance in her eye.

Jyn pulled the stormtrooper doll closer to her chest and curled tighter towards the ground. For a brief second, she closed her eyes and made a silent wish that her family would be able to escape this nightmare. However, she knew the chances of that were slim; the determination she could see in her mother meant only one thing: she would not rest until her family was safe from Krennic. 

Her eyes opened in time to watch as her mother pulled a blaster from her robes. The defiance in her eyes burned bright across the valley, searing the image in her mind forever. She wanted to run to her family, to cause a distraction to help them escape, to do anything. Instead, she lay frozen in fear. 

Lyra dropped to the ground a moment after the blaster fire lit up the valley. Another moment and the scream was leaving her small body without her notice. She didn’t notice as her father’s head snapped in the direction of the scream--his eyes shining with heartbreak. She didn’t notice as Krennic’s gaze followed, a menacing smirk marring his features.

The black monsters, the ones that had caused her Mama to lay still on the ground, moved to come towards her but Krennic stopped them. Instead, he went to her himself.

She pushed herself herself off the ground, realizing her mistake, but the man in white was already there. He crouched down before her, leveling his eyes with hers. Up close, they were even more piercing. 

“Well, hello there, Little one. What’s your name?” 

Jyn couldn’t find it in herself to answer. Instead, she tried to push herself away from him. The dirt scrapped under her fingernails in her futile attempts. He was much bigger than she was. He reached an arm out and grabbed her arm--not roughly, but sternly.

“Now, now.” The smirk was back. Menacing. “We can’t have you running off. You’ll be coming with me and your father. I have a feeling he’d like you to come.”

Her Papa would never want such a thing; that was why they had made the hatch, why they had practiced running to it. Why he had told her to run and why she should have listening. Stupid little girl, she thought. This was all her fault. She should have behaved. Mama told her to.

He pulled her up from the ground with such force that she lost her grip on Stormy and the trooper doll fell into the dirt. He pulled her away before she had a chance to reach down to grab it.

She was pulled in the direction of her father, of her mother’s lifeless body. But they didn’t get close enough for her to run to him, to reach out to him. Meters of valley separated them, as well as the monsters in black and the grip the man in white had on her arm.

“She is just a child. You don’t need her,” Galen shouted across the clearing at his once companion. His eyes, however, never left his daughter. She was shaking in fear, staring at Lyra. “Let her go.”

“Let her go where?” Krennic motioned towards the empty valley that surrounded him, with arms wide open, before letting his eyes fall on Lyra. “Let her stay here alone to die?” He tsked.

Galen’s gaze moved from his daughter, to his wife, to the death troopers separating him from Krennic and his daughter. “Better that than she becomes a slave like them.”

The ground crunched under his feet as Krennic moved closer to him. He was shaking his head, that smirk still in place. Jyn fell to the ground roughly due to his sudden movement.

“Slave? I’m disappointed you think that of me--of us. We would keep you safe.”

He didn’t even allow her father a response. Instead, he motioned the Death Troopers forward. One grabbed her father roughly by the arm, another placed his blaster at Galen’s back. 

Her screams filled the air as they roughly pushed her father forward, towards Krennic’s ship and farther away from her. The blaster at his back didn’t stop him from glancing over his shoulder at her the entire walk. Even with the distance between them, she can see him whispering: My Stardust. I’ll protect you.

Then, he disappeared over the horizon with the death troopers. And was was left alone with Krennic. 

With tear-stained eyes, she raised her head to stare at him. Her father would want her to be strong, like her mother was. The director and her locked eyes for what felt like an eternity. After a moment of enduring their stare-down, Krennic grinned.

“Good. You’ll be a good recruit. I’ll make a soldier of you yet.”

To her small ears, the words registered as something different: You’re mine now.

He twitched two fingers and the troopers were grasping her arms again, hailing her to her feet and forcing her towards the same ship they had just loaded her father onto. Something inside her was screaming at her, telling her an unavoidable truth. She would not be seeing her father again. 

She steeled her gaze as the troopers led her towards a dark compartment on the ship. With each step she took, the kyber crystal around her neck weighed her down more and more.


	2. The Whispers in the Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They Meet.
> 
> "You come into the world, Alone. You go out of the world, Alone. But in between, there's you and me." - Trampled By Turtles
> 
> UPDATE: Okay, So I realized that I didn't much like the direction the original plot was going, so I've reworked some things. I'm eternally sorry for the delay, but feel much more inspired now!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to keep this as cannon as possible but *shrugs* writing happens.

_“There have been whispers. The empire is planning something big. but no one knows any more than that.”_

The lights flickered in the hallway above him as he calmly marched towards his destination. His hands were clasped behind his back; His eyes trailed straight ahead. The flurry of officers and other imperial underlings were background noise. They walked around the hallways, in and out of offices like it was nothing.

Like they weren’t supporting a corrupt system of oppressors and tyrants.

He had been traveling a long time; going from planet to planet, port to port, searching for links in a chain of information outside his understandings. The supplies he had begun with were wearing low, as were his credits. Too much had been spent for the jumble of nonsense his contacts were trying to pass off as ‘intelligence’. He couldn’t return to Base One empty handed. Not after what this trip has cost them. Cost him.

_“It is no longer safe for me to meet with you. There was someone following me the other day.”_

Kay-Tu had told him this was the stupidest idea he had had to date--his chance of going undiscovered ranged between 12 to 14.5 percent. To Cassian, he was desperate enough to accept those odds. So the pair had found themselves on Coruscant, huddled up in the vacant room of an imperial turned informant that had vanished days prior--one Cole Belo. An Officer that just so happened to be stationed under Director Orson Krennic in his Coruscant offices.

The plan was simple: sneak into the office of the director, plant a bug, leave. It was the execution of said plan that would be difficult.

Based on the intel he had been passed, he knew that the director was away. Keeping tabs on Imperial officers wasn’t something he specialized in, but men like Orson Krennic were easy to track. Especially when each move they made created a ripple of rumor and speculation that spread across all reaches of the galaxy.

He glanced around the hallway in the most discreet way possible before sliding the key card into the lock. He stood there, waiting and watching. After a moment, the red light flickered green and he quickly slid inside the room.

_“I’ve already given you enough. I want no more part in this. This is your fight, not mine.”_

Glancing around the office, he could point out a million differences between this office and those housed in the rebel base. The only thing he cared about, however, was the metal desk sitting in the middle of the room. From the intel Belo had given him months ago, he knew that the Director often spent more time at his desk than one would imagine of a man that oversees remote projects.

He pulled the bug from the inside of his jacket and grasped it tightly in his hand. He had to admit, as ugly and uncomfortable as the officer tunics were, they sure could hold a good number of things inside them. Then, he began to creep through the dim room towards the desk.

He had made it to the desk when he paused. After so many years in the rebellion, Cassian knew the feel of a blaster being pointed at his back; he didn’t even need to turn around to know he was no longer alone in the office. He may have never been alone at all.

Usually, he was more perceptive of these things--being surrounded by Imperials must have put him too on edge. He could hear his mentor’s disappointed sigh ringing in his ear: The rebel alliance taught you better than this. He silently cursed himself for the costly mistake. And he didn’t even have Kay-Tu waiting outside as back-up. Stupid.

Slowly, he began to turn to face the new arrival. As he shifted his body around, he activated the bug still in his hand, and slid it just into the inside of his sleeve. This mission could not be a failure--no matter the cost. He had already spent so much, killed too many, to get here.

Then, he raised his eyes to meet the owner of the blaster currently pointed at him.

A sleek, glossy black mask met his eyes and he couldn’t help the sense of dread that rose inside him. An imperial death trooper.

He’d never seen a death trooper up close before. In fact, it was very rare that any rebel saw a death trooper face to face and lived to tell the tale. They were known for how ruthless and unforgiving they were. Standing in the middle of an empty office, the death trooper looked ready for war and considerably out of place.

He had two options: Stay in character or make a break for it. The pistol he had stashed under his tunic was burning a hole in his side.

“Identify yourself.” The cold, mechanical voice sent a chill down his spine. It didn’t even sound human--more like static that came from a broken com. He honestly wasn’t even sure he had heard that trooper, that thing, correctly. Kay-Tu had more emotion in his voice than this trooper. He spared a glance down at the blaster rifle pointed at him. The trigger was half pulled.

It seemed the death trooper wasn’t giving him an option. Luckily, This was the exact situation he was trained for.

“Officer Cole Belo.” He offered the trooper a salute. “I was told to deliver some paperwork for the director.” Cassian lowered his saluting hand and slid his it into the opening of his olive tunic. He grasped the folder he had placed there and pulled it out. The folder was raised into the air for the trooper to see.

Apparently, when he had scanned himself into the building as Belo, there was actually an assignment waiting for him. Just Cassian’s luck. The office secretary had given him the assignment to deliver without a second glance.

“See?” Slowly, he turned his back on the trooper and placed the folder on the desk he had just been standing in front of. As soon as the folder hit the top of the desk, he paused. The eyes of the trooper, hidden behind the dark mask, stayed trailed on his every movement. He could feel them.

The entirety of the mission could be decided in this moment. With the bug grasped in his hand, he flipped it over so that the magnetic side was facing up. As he turned back to face the trooper, he placed the hand holding the bug on the desk, the tips of his fingers pressing the bug into the underside of the desk’s lip. He offered a grin to the trooper.

“Now that those have been delivered, I will be going back to my post.”

Before he could even take a step forward, the death trooper had moved in front of the door, blocking his only exit. On the outside he remained expressionless, but on the inside he could feel the dread sinking in. The trooper pressed a code into the door lock and Cassian watched as the light went from green, to red, to turning off.

“Confirm identity.” Slowly, the trooper moved closer, stalking towards him as if he were prey. Their blaster remained pointed at his chest. The static emitting from the trooper’s mask, barely passing as a form of communication, was more chilling than anything Cassian had ever experienced before. “Confirm.”

Cassian raised his gaze from the floor to look straight into the black mask. Why was this trooper questioning him so much? Death troopers weren’t known for the mindless babble that flawed their white counterparts. Even one worded questions were too much coming from this masked machine. The trigger was still half pulled.

It was very rare for Cassian to feel flustered or on edge. Now, this executioner had him feeling both.

“Present identification.”

Cassian could only see one way out of this. With a sigh, he silently sent a prayer above. He really hoped he had moved past things like this in his youth. Then, without a second thought, he launched his body at the trooper.

It was nearly impossible to guess what a stormtrooper was feeling and even less so for a death trooper, based on the masks they wore, but with how easily he took the trooper down, he would have to say that this one was surprised.

They fell to the floor in a loud thud, before rustling about like a couple of schoolboys rolling around in the sand. Cassian felt juvenile and pathetic for taking on a trained death trooper like this, but at the moment it was all he had. He couldn’t risk reaching for his own blaster. Rather, each tugged and pulled at the troopers blaster, hoping to gain control. To be honest, it was the strangest fight Cassian had ever been in.

Then, Cassian found himself pushing the trooper to the ground and pinning them there; with one hand on either end of the long blaster rifle, he pushed his entire weight down to hold the trooper under his body. The trooper struggled underneath Cassian for a moment, before falling still.

“Aren’t death troopers supposed to be a little more deadly?” Apparently, Kay-Tu was rubbing off on him. The trooper cocked their head to the side--as if considering his words.

“Yes.” With that, they brought their leg up and slammed it into Cassian’s back, catching him by surprise and causing him to loosen his grip on the blaster.

The trooper shoved him away and quickly stood up, pointing the blaster straight at his head. He heard the trigger set. The trooper remained silent.

Cassian, realizing he was bested in fair play, decided to do something not so fair.

He swept his leg under the trooper swiftly, colliding his skin with the armor of the troopers boots. He could already feel the bruise forming as he watched the trooper hit the ground. The rifle also hit the ground, falling out of the troopers grasp. While still on the ground, Cassian kicked it away--sending the rifle sliding across the floor. Cassian then reached into his tunic and pulled out the blaster of his own. He could feel a slight smirk cross his features.

“Now, I have a few questions for you.” He jumped to his feet and pointed the pistol at the black-clad trooper. Now, he was executioner.

Slowly, he stalked towards the trooper, until he was standing right above them. As he stood there, he couldn’t help but notice, for the first time, how small the trooper was. He must not have noticed before due to the escalating situation. But now that he was in control, he could take a minute to notice the finer details.

Like how the trooper didn’t take the chance to shoot him when any other imperial soldier would have. Like how it was almost as if the trooper had wanted to be dis-armed.

“What do you know of Director Krennic’s work? Why are you here, protecting his office?”

For a moment, it was so silent he could hear the sound of people moving about normally in the hallway on the other side of the door. How no one had heard their scuffle, he would never understand. The trooper remained still, only moving their chest to breathe. Then, they emitted a sound that sounded like a laugh.

“I am a soldier.” His brow furrowed at that comment, not sure if he misunderstood the words, or the laugh, emitted in the static voice that was sure to haunt him for time to come. Cassian was starting to get tired of this trooper. For once he missed the mindless chatter and easy interrogations given by the white counterparts.

Cassian’s finger tightened around the trigger. If he knew one thing about death troopers, he knew they were trained to die before betraying the empire. A similarity Cassian did not want to acknowledge about himself. He was wasting valuable time; time he and Kay needed in order to ensure safe passage to their next contact location.

He lowered the blaster and aimed it at the trooper’s throat--where he knew the most damage would lie. The trooper noticed the movement and stilled.

“My helmet.” Cassian’s finger twitched at the static sound coming from the trooper. An uneasy feeling began to settle in his stomach. Nothing good could come from this conversation lasting longer than it already had.

“What about it?” He didn’t want to look upon the face of a man converted into a monster for the empire. He had seen enough of those. There were too many of his kind in the universe.

There was no reason to keep this trooper alive. He had planted the bug; he had accomplished what he came here for. The percentage of success was looking higher and higher; the trooper laying on the ground below him was the only thing stopping his escape. He had killed troopers before. He would again. It was a fact of his life.

He was being selfish. He knew what was stopping him. The promise of more. Cassian was dedicated to the rebellion; he would do anything, within reason, to reach his goal. He knew this trooper had to know something about the whispers he had continually heard during his long trip. He just knew it.

And so he waited for their response. Allowing himself to be tugged along by this imperial guard.

Another round of silence. Then, slowly, the trooper reached up for their helmet. With a click, the helmet was lifted off their head. A tussle of brown hair fell down their--her--shoulder in the process.

He suddenly found himself staring at a very young, very pretty, human girl. Her grey eyes were stuck on his, watching his every move. Apparently, this explained why she was so small. However, the question of how she even became one of the empire’s most skilled and feared soldiers still hung in the air. He knew, under all the armor, that troopers were average people, just like him--a fact he often tried to forget in the darkness of the night. He had even heard of all female squadrons. But this? She looked like she should have still been at the academy--and definitely not suited up in that black armor.

He slightly lowered the blaster from being aimed at her throat and she took that as an invitation to stand. His eyes analyzed her every move. Without the mask, she looked less like an executioner; less like a threat. He wished she had kept it on.

She looked even smaller standing directly before him--even with the rest of her armor covering her body. Her foot inched forward, causing the hand holding his blaster to flinch. She noticed and pulled her foot back--remaining a metre away.

“You’ve wasted your time coming here.” Her voice was rough, as if she was speaking naturally for the first time in a long time. The sound surprised him. It made him wonder if she ever spoke without wearing that mask. How long had it been since she spoke aloud, even to herself, without it. “There’s nothing more you can learn from this office than you already know.”

He stared at her blankly, his grip remaining firm on the blaster. The girl’s eyes flickered everywhere except in his direction--her pupils were completely dilated. Her breathing was ruggeded and uneven. He wondered when she last took the helmet off. Her weakness was his advantage.

“And what do I already know?” The question slipped out without him meaning for it to. Her actions were strange, unnerving. At this point, he couldn’t be sure who--or what--she truly was. Well fitting armor did not make for an actual soldier.

“That there is a weapon.” The words flowed from her mouth as a coarse whisper--a breath of information he had so longed to have confirmed.

He was about to prompt her for more; this was what he was looking for, even if it wasn’t what he expected to hear. All of the whispers had said the same thing. Weapon. Resources. Death. They all scattered about like pieces of a puzzle no one could connect. She could be the missing piece. Maybe he wouldn’t be returning empty handed after all.

Then, she continued on speaking as if she knew this.

“I don’t know much about it,” she paused, her eyes still attempting to focus following the loss of her mask. He noticed she glanced straight at where he had planted the bug. Apparently, that move wasn’t as sneaky as he thought it was. Or maybe she was more observant than he gave her credit for.

It didn’t pass his attention that she made no move to remove it.

“I am only a soldier.”

If Cassian knew one thing, he knew that death troopers were never just soldiers. They were highly trained for specialized reasons. She was just a soldier in the same sense that he was just a soldier of the rebellion--a soldier that knew much more than they would ever be willing to let on for sake of securing their secrets.

She was left here; she was trusted to guard the personal office of the Director of the Advanced Weapons Research Division. A man as influential as Orson Krennic would not entrust a job such as that to just a soldier.

He took a step forward, struggling to hear her--she had lowered her voice and kept glancing at the bug.

“But I’ve seen it,” she paused again.

Cassian could feel the cold creeping down his spine. The look in her eye was one of hidden distress, a look he didn’t know how long had resided there. He wanted to scream at her: what kind of weapon. He needed to know. Her eyes finally made contact with his as she whispered the answer he so longed to hear.

“A planet killer.”

Now it was Cassian’s turn to pause. A planet killer? Everything he had ever heard, all intelligence he had collected--nothing had pointed towards this. He had always viewed those sort of whispers as fantasy from a time of Jedi and Sith. Not something feasible for the Empire.

During his pause, he felt equal parts excited and disgusted. This information would be worth it all--all the trouble he had endured and every price he had paid. Her information was worth it.

“A planet killer?” He tasted the words on his lips and immediately wanted to swallow them back.

“The meeting Krennic went to, the one you heard about,” there was no question in her voice as she said this, plain as a fact. She knew why he had picked this moment to plan his operation and had probably been left behind for the possibility of a visit like this. She was definitely brighter than he originally gave her credit for. This trooper was very good at making connections.

“He went to discuss a security breach. A message was sent out.”

Cassian stared at her face, letting the information sink in. He wasn’t one to trust easily--and he definitely didn’t want to trust a death trooper. The way she so freely shared information with him made him question what her motives for this exchange were. Luckily, He didn’t have to trust her; he just needed to use her information. He would dispose of her when he was finished.

“A message?” He needed to know what the message said. He needed to know where to find it. He needed to connect all the pieces. “Where can I find it?”

“I do not know. My specialization is not intelligence.” Her words were as blank as her expression. There was something else--something she was not telling him. But he didn’t want to push. Not when he sensed she had been holding back in the scuffle he had almost lost.

His grip tightened around the blaster in his hand.

“I told you, you wasted time in coming here. There is nothing more for you on this planet.”

He took another step forward and was now only inches from her. Close enough to feel her breath on his skin. To make her look up into his face. He still didn’t trust her, but he felt he could trust the information she passed along. He was going to need to--what little information it was. He had no other choice. Hearing this from her, a fly on the walls to the happenings of the imperial inner circle, it made the whispers become a vague reality rather than speculations.

He gazed down at her and she up at him. He could see her eyes widening from proximity; her eyes were calculating. He could tell it had been a long time since she had been this close to another person; at least, without her helmet on. Her mouth opened slightly, as if to say something. But she was holding herself back. He looked away towards the desk.

“Information never comes free.” He didn’t even phrase it as a question. He had been a spy for a long while. Even though this girl was young, she wasn’t stupid. She was well versed in the rules of war. Whatever she asked for, he knew he couldn’t give her. The rebellion wasn’t known for teaming up with imperial soldiers--Especially not ones that more than likely not had a kill count that rivaled his.

He also knew as soon as he found the right opportunity, he would just be adding her to his list of payments he had made for this mission.

Her eyes were looking everywhere but at his face. The expression he saw there was blank; he wondered if she was capable of showing human expression. After so long at war, sometimes he forgot how to as well.

“I want you to leave this building, go back to wherever it is you’re hiding out, pack up, and never return to Coruscant.” Her words came out as nothing more than breath. Her eyes still pointedly staring away from his.

That caused him to raise a brow. He was expecting something… else. Something she could have benefitted from. Anything. In his confusion at her words, he had paused and missed his opportunity to strike.

“There are no secrets in the empire; they will know you were here. I can escort you out of the building, but even I have limitations.” If Cassian didn’t know any better, he would say her words were laced with genuine concern. But he knew better. He always knew better.

Her words were, however, making him reconsider his plan to take her out. She was offering him an escape route--something she knew he would need. But how could he trust her after they parted? How would he know whether this was a setup for a trap for the rebellion or if she was just trying to lure him somewhere to execution him, like she should have done the second he walked in this office? He had never met an imperial with good intentions.

She could see the hesitation in his eyes, he knew she could. It was written plain as day. Another mistake. But she made no move to capitalize from it. Another confusion for him.

“Why,” He paused. He wasn’t sure what exactly it was he wanted to ask her. There was something interesting about this girl. Something he felt he could connect to. Something that called out to him. In her eyes he saw a same loneliness that reflected into his. However, his loneliness had hardened over years of struggle and battle. She exposed hers the second she took off her black mask.

“Why did you tell me this information?” His voice lowered to an even softer whisper, well aware of the bug that had been transmitting their entire conversation to Kay-Tu--who was prepared to relay it to the base. This was a question the rebel leaders didn’t need to know the answer to. It was an answer he needed for himself.

She didn’t even hesitate in her answer, as if she knew his question before he even spoke it.

“Sometimes I dream of a world where I don’t wear a mask--where I can walk on the beach without a blaster at my side.” She paused for a brief moment, looking towards the dark corner she had emerged from not moments ago. “Someday I want to experience that sort of freedom for myself.”

For a moment, his body stilled--not expecting that to come from her. It was the most human thing she had said their entire encounter. It was disconcerting, to say the least. Her eyes flashed to his for the briefest of moments.

The answer he received left him with more questions than he started with. He wanted to ask more, but knew there was no time. He knew he shouldn’t. He knew he shouldn’t have asked in the first place.

He took a step away from her, as if just now realizing how close they actually had been standing. As he stepped away, something in her eyes shifted.

She leant down and wrapped her hands around the helmet she had placed on the floor. She stared at it in her hands, as if having an internal debate. He could see her fingers scratching into the glossy metal as her grip tightened, leaving marks as they did so.

Then, without a word, she closed her eyes and slid the helmet on. All traces of the girl gone. Now, he was alone with the machine.

His eyes trailed her as she marched, that was the only way to describe her movements in that armor, to where her gun had been tossed. She leant down, picked it up, and turned to him at attention. Waiting for her orders, as if he were an actual Imperial

He knew in that moment, he would not be using his pistol again on this trip.

A small, sad feeling began to burn in his gut at the sight. However, he repressed it as soon as it began to flare up. He had a mission. Feeling bad for a child soldier of the Empire was not included. He had spent enough time concerned with the likes.

She moved to the door and opened it, escaping into the hallway.

As he followed her through the wiggles of hallways and elevators, he tried to wrap his mind around the information she had given him. It was more than he could have hoped for--it was a treasure chest of intel that would fuel their next actions.

Hopefully, enough to pull him away from the thoughts of a little girl, trapped inside the black-armored grasp of the empire that would undoubtedly haunt his mind for nights to come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everything is not as it seems, Cassian.


	3. The Rebirth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "But the ghosts that we knew will flicker from view and we'll live a long life." - Mumford & Sons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UPDATE: Here is where the update gets more noticeable.

_ “Why am I here? Where’s Papa?” The black-clad stormtrooper gripped her arm tighter at the sound of her voice. _

_ Her eyes flittered around the room, taking in the vast white walls and terrible sterile smell. This sight was in stark comparison to the planet she had called home for the most recent part of her young life. The only things here were a table and chair unlike one she had ever seen--there were all sorts of straps hanging down from it. She didn’t like the way it looked. _

_ She hadn’t seen her father since they forced her onto the ship and into that dark compartment. The man in white said he would keep them safe; how could they be safe if they weren’t together? She really wished she had listened to Mama. _

_ Oh gods, now she was thinking of her mother. She really needed her Papa. Where was he? Why wasn’t he here? He had  _ promised _! _

_ The necklace around her neck felt heavier and heavier with each passing second. _

_ The man in white had been standing across the white room from her. He had been speaking to a man in a cloak. The cloaked man looked like one of the scientists her Papa used to bring to their apartment when they lived in that big city. Before they moved onto the farm. Before they were happy. Before that was ruined. _

_ The scientist and the man in the cape, Director Krennic they called him, whispered for a second longer before he turned towards Jyn. He gave her what she assumed he thought was a grin. _

_ “Why, little one, your Papa is working on a very special project for me. Don’t you worry though, he’s very safe.” _

_ He waved his hand and the grip the trooper had on her arm tightened and he began walking forward, dragging her along. Her mind was racing but it didn’t take her long to realize he was pulling her towards the scary looking chair. Futility, she began to fight against his grip. But it was no use, she wasn’t strong enough. _

_ “There’s no need to be afraid, child. We aren’t going to harm you. I have a very important role for you, to help your Papa.” _

_ The director’s words rang in her ears. The grip on her arm was ever tightening.  _

_ He was lying, she knew he was. Her Papa had not wanted them to go with the man in white; he had to have had a reason to fear this man. There had to be a reason her Mama sacrificed herself to try and save her family. She fought harder against the grip. _

_ The trooper lifted her off the ground and placed her on the chair. Her limbs thrashed violently against his grip. Her screams echoed throughout the empty room. Suddenly, her face was stinging as the arm of the trooper came into contact with it. She hadn’t even seen him raise his arm in her struggles. _

_ In her shock from the attack, the three men managed to get her strapped down into the chair. The face of the man in white loomed over her. _

_ “See, your Papa doesn’t want to work on this project for me. However, he loves his little girl and apparently, the safety of a child is a strong bargaining chip.” He grinned again. _

_ Her screams grew louder as the scientist slid on a pair of gloves, before taking a syringe to one of her arms. Slowly, her eyes began to drop. _

_ “I have very big plans for you, 4227.”  _

_ His eyes fell from her face to her chest, where he spotted the necklace hanging there. He leant forward to take the crystal in his hand, twisting it in the light to get a better look. She didn’t even have any energy to fight against him. _

_ “I will return when the process is complete.” _

_ He closed the crystal in his fist and yanked the necklace violently from her neck. _

_ *** _

Officer Cole Belo was an average man. There was nothing atypical about him. 

Every morning he rode the same train, which he caught at exactly 7:47, to work, where he arrived at exactly 7:56. He always clocked in right at 0800, as was standard procedure in the Imperial Intelligence Headquarters. He would then ride the elevator up to the 59th floor, where the office of Director Krennic was located. At precisely 8:07 he would take a seat at his desk.

The other officers that worked in the office with him had nothing against the recent academy graduate--most could not even place his face when asked about him by a superior. Afterall, he mostly just fetched the mail and performed other secretarial tasks throughout the day; something a droid could easily perform just as well. He did not exceed at his job, nor did he underperform. He was perfectly average, as was expected of him.

Except, however, when he did the unexpected.

His pristine officer’s uniform stood out against the grimy backdrop of the alley he found himself in. The underbelly was a part of the Imperial Center he never visited, for obvious reasons. The Imperials were not friends to those who resided here. He almost regretted coming straight from his shift here; however, he had exact instructions to follow.

The coded message he had received on his desk this morning, delivered by a non-descript imperial droid, had said to be in this exact location at this exact time. And Officer Cole Belo was always exact.

Down on the other end of the alley, two men were arguing over something; their words were lost on his ear by the noises of the city. Neither appeared to be the person he was expecting. The argument seemed a bit too genuine to be a planned tactic. His eyes did another scan of the area; tardiness was his biggest annoyance and the messenger of this message was falling very behind. He could almost hear the tics emitting from the timepiece he kept on his body at all ties. 

Seven minutes after the designated time, another figure emerged into the dark alley. Belo didn’t need them to pull down their hood, nor unmask their face, for him to realize this was who he was waiting on. He took a step forward towards the approaching figure. The hooded figure stood still, just out of the light that was emitted from the dim streetlights.

“Why did you contact me at work like this? You’re risking everything,” he hissed, his eyes wild as he watched them, waiting to spot any form of reaction. Their head cocked to the side, as if taking a moment to ponder his concerns. They offered no response.

It wasn’t unusual for him to receive communications like this out of the blue. However, they were never delivered to him at work, where they could be intercepted. They were always given to him at his home, where they could be more easily disguised as something else. Where the eyes of the empire were not upon him. 

“The other officers are beginning to take notice of me. I can’t keep meeting like this.”

The words came tumbling out of his mouth. He wasn’t sure how true that first part was; the men he worked with barely paid the young man any mind--he knew this. They prefered to stare at the screens they sat before or do exactly as the Director ordered, when he was in office, that is. 

The second statement was absolute truth, however. He hadn’t meant to wind up in this situation. One drunk night in a bar, and suddenly he found himself subjected to the exploitations of the rebel alliance. A mistake that weighed heavily on his conscious. 

He had a bright future ahead of himself in Director Krennic’s office. At least, that’s what he liked to tell himself at night. A future that had no room for alliance nonsense. After all, the alliance is what had gotten his brother killed, as his father reminded him of that more often than not. He was the son of an important imperial official. He did not waste his time at the academy for this. 

He had been assigned to Director Krennic’s office for a very specific reason and sharing information with the rebellion was not it.

He calmed his racing heart and spoke with determination. “This is the last time I’m meeting with you.”

 

The hooded figure took a step forward, out of the darkness. The lights above the alley were flickering, making it hard to distinguish the features of his contact. However, as the light stayed lit for a long moment, he realized he was staring into a pair of very dull eyes. Eyes that appeared almost dead.

The owner of the eyes, whom he now realized was a human female, stepped more fully into the light. She was dressed as a normal civilian, making her seem as if she could have been anyone. However, as he stared at her face a moment longer, he realized he knew her face--it was a face that haunted his thoughts in the dead of night. A face he had seen only once, on accident.

The face of an unmasked death trooper.

“Right you are, Officer Belo.”

He barely had time to plead for his life before he saw the blaster raised in the air, staring him down. Red light lit up the alley and he fell to his knees, before falling face forward onto the ground. His pristine uniform ruined as it splashed into a puddle of muck. 

Her grey eyes were the last thing he ever saw.

***

His steps echoed throughout the steel hallways of the Executrix. Surrounding him was the hustle of Imperials typical when aboard the flagship of a fleet. However, as he moved through the halls, making his way from the hanger to the main deck, the flurries of troopers and officers parted in his wake. The annoyance on his face clear to all in his path.

Not soon enough he found himself standing in the center of the machine, staring ahead at a wide window overlooking  _ his _ greatest creation. The only thing blocking an otherwise perfect view was the uniformed man standing at the dead center of the window.

Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin did not need an announcement to know the other man had arrived; he could hear the loud steps of the director from half a ship away--his arrogance preceded him that way. 

“Most unfortunate about the security breach on Jedha, Director.” The withering old man turned to face Krennic. His eyes glazed over the death trooper escorts positioned behind the director with disinterest, before settling on the cape that fell from Orson Krennic’s shoulders. He sneered at the sight. 

“I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about,” was the response Krennic gave the old governor. But, of course, they both knew this was a lie. 

The breach was the sole reason he had left Coruscant as quickly as he had, why he had left his  _ most favorite _ trooper behind. However, he wasn't about to allow the governor toy with him like an underling. He had worked too hard, sacrificed too much. 

_ You think I don't know, _ he wanted to say.  _ You think I don't have informants of my own among your ranks, as you have in mine? _

“After so many setbacks, so many,” he paused, actually looking towards the guards Krennic had brought with him. His eyes scanned over them, noting with interest that one was missing. He raised a brow. “... _ distractions _ . Now this. There have been rumors, Director. Apparently you've lost a very talkative pilot.”

Orson Krennic, director of the advanced research division of the empire, was never treated with the respect he deserved. He was the one who organized the Death Star project. He was the one who conducted the engineers and scientists as maestro and they the instrumentalists performing his greatest symphony. How dare Tarkin, a man of no genius--an imperial pawn, speak to him in this manner. 

“The pilot is of no consequence. You have said yourself, secrecy is an impediment to progress. Rumors are bound to spread.” The words rolled off his tongue, flippant and casual. He would not be played. He would gain the respect he deserves. Tarkin would not halt this rise any longer. 

“The rumors are not the concern, Director,” the words came out in a sneer, apparently the only way Tarkin knew how to address Krennic. “The concern is proof. The senate cannot learn about our project,” the words dripped with contempt. 

“We cannot allow the rebellion to gain momentum.”

Krennic allowed a soft, calculating grin grow across his face. Once again, the governor had incorrectly underestimated him and his genius. He was already one step ahead of the old man who stood before him. Soon he would gain the attention of the Emperor he so deserved. 

“That will not be an issue, I can assure you.”

A moment of silence fell between the two officers. Tarkin turned his back to Krennic, to face the window and stare out into the vast expanses of space. Krennic awaited what the governor would say next, for him to explain how he expected the problem to be solved--something Krennic had begun to take care of before leaving Coruscant. 

“I see you left your little pet behind, Director.”

The words were unexpected and caused Krennic pause. 

It wasn't a secret among the men, or even the other guards escorting Director Krennic, as to who Tarkin was speaking of. The girl was the worst kept secret in the Empire among the officers; a fact the director chose to ignore. She served her purposes for him; purposes Tarkin could never understand. 

She also happened to be the most successful example of soldier produced yet for their new set of recruits. 

“Yes. There was a breach among the ranks.” Governor Tarkin turned back to face him. This man had the audacity to continually question him? A man who hides behind glass instead of taking action?

_ Amazing _ , he thought,  _ the power of being a pawn to Vader was _ . 

“One officer Belo. I believe you're familiar with the boy.” No signs of recognition passed over the governor's face, however Krennic knew the truth. Belo was the son of a high ranking officer among the Tarkin initiative. Tarkin himself had recommended the boy to the academy. 

No doubt he was meant to be informing Tarkin on the actions that occurred in Krennic’s office. How ironic. 

“He was trading secrets to rebellion. I had her dispose of him.” Krennic allowed him no time to react to the news, not that Tarkin would. The man was good at hiding his emotions. But not quite good enough. Krennic could see the sneer reemerging.

“Do not worry about the Pilot; he will be dealt with as the boy was.”  

With those final words, Krennic spun and began to march towards the door. His cape billowed behind him, his death troopers followed in his wake. 

***

The canteen was bustling with noise, as per usual on a workday afternoon. The tables were filled by troopers and technicians taking their mid-day breaks; enjoying the chance to speak of something other than data files and incoming transmissions. The work that occurred in the Coruscant office of Director Orson Krennic was not the most interesting work; especially considering the man was rarely ever at his office. The man preferred the deep chill of space--as did most other high ranking officers.

“Did you hear?”

Erstin Lyek, a technician that worked mainly on repairing com wires, looked up as another technician--Sami Yvez--sat down across from him. He grinned at her upon her arrival to the table. He and Sami had been good friends since the academy; she made the monotony of working in these offices less terrible.

“Hear what?”

Sami also, unsurprisingly, was a gossip.

“Belo hasn’t been seen for three days. And he isn’t on leave.”

Everyone knew who Cole Belo was--the boy was a snake. No one much cared for him within the office, so it wasn’t much a surprise that this was the first he was hearing of the boy’s disappearance. He was a ‘legacy’, with his father and grandfather both being higher ranking officers. The boy also had a smart mouth and disliked anyone expecting him to actually  _ work _ .

“How strange. Golden boy never misses work.”

Sami nodded, before taking a glance around the canteen. Then, she leant forward.

“Some people were saying that--”

The words died at her lips as she spotted something over his shoulder. Erstin turned in his seat, taking a look towards what had caught her eye. Walking through the doors was DT-4227. Silence fell over the canteen upon their arrival. Everyone within the offices was aware that Director Krennic was away on duty, which usually mean his guard detail was also away. Seeing the death trooper there, standing alone in the canteen, was unnerving.

No one within the offices knew anything about the trooper, not even what their face looked like. The trooper never took their lunch within the canteen; never unmasked themselves, even around droids. People within the offices had started making wagers on what they thought the trooper looked like underneath all the armor. He was on the side of hideously scarred face from time seen in battle.

Erstin’s eyes trailed down the trooper’s body. Their blaster was still strapped to their hip. 

He and Sami watched as the trooper made way through the food lines, taking a minimal amount, before turning back around and carrying the tray out of the canteen with them. It was another moment before the chatter that had filled the canteen before the trooper’s arrival resumed.

“They were saying he was murdered.” Erstin’s eyes snapped back around to Sami, who was still leaning in towards him. “They were saying that’s why Krennic left 4227 behind.”

Erstin leant back in his seat, a slight chill running through his body at the thought. He wasn’t a fan of Belo, no one really was. But him being murdered by a death trooper? He wouldn’t wish that fate on even his worst enemy. Especially not by 4227. Anytime there was a story attached to that callsign, it was usually a horrific tale.

He leant down over his food and took a slow bite.

“Best to not let anyone else hear you share that rumor.” They both understood his meaning.

***

_ Director Orson Krennic stood at a wide window, overlooking a barren white room. He had been gone for some time, visiting the various research bases he was head of. Most recently, making sure to stop at Eadu to deliver some important news to a very dear friend of his. _

_ “What is the progress on her?” _

_ The room was barren, save for a small child coiled in the corner. The beige clothes she arrived in were replaced by empire issued garb. The same clothes given to all recruits. Her legs were tucked into her chest and the director watched he as she rocked--back and forth, back and forth. Her eyes did not move from the spot on the floor they stared at. _

_ “She is strong, sir. After her initial sedation, we attempted re-education techniques; similar to those used at various clone academies. However,” the scientist glanced from Director Krennic towards the girl. There was a concerned look on his face that the director did not appreciate. There would be no sympathy within these walls. “She has very strong anti-empire foundations. Making such techniques futile.”  _

_ Krennic was more than familiar with the re-education techniques of which the doctor spoke. He had seen more imperial propaganda in his life than anyone loyal to the empire needed to see. The girl was the daughter of Galen and Lyra Erso--strong believers in the freedoms of society and Old Republic. These fools should have known better than to attempt such weak efforts on their offspring. _

_ “She has been here for six weeks, Doctor. My timeline for her is strict. Her dedication to our cause needs to be ensured.” _

_ The doctor, a short man from Coruscant, glanced between the Director and the girl. He did not fully understand the circumstances of his assignment, only the basic goal: recondition and prepare for active service. He did not go searching for answers as to the meanings of those terms. He already had a basic understanding. _

_ However, he did often wonder why Krennic--one of the most powerful men in the empire--was so concerned with such a small child. One that could never hope to meet the requirements he expected of her. _

_ “There are… other options we can pursue, in that case.” Those words caught Director Krennic’s attention. The man in white turned from the window, his hands behind his back, and fully faced the doctor. An unspoken request to continue was written on his face. _

_ “The reconditioning process for soldiers is new, as we are phasing out the clones. The new soldiers we bring in are much like this little girl--normal citizens meant for normal lives. However,” the doctor paused to run a tissue under his nose. “We have been developing ways to turn regular citizens into soldiers almost as dedicated as the clones.” _

_ At this, Krennic raised an eye. There were whispers throughout the empire of the clone population running low. Clone Troopers were genetically perfect soldiers, however, it was becoming apparent that their only flaw came in the form of their accelerated aging process. Krennic had not been aware that the shift from clone to recruit was coming so soon. _

_ “Normally, the recruits would be volunteers. This case, however, is special. This case is,” he paused, “inhumane.” _

_ The Director turned from the doctor and again stared out at the girl. His plans for her were central to his goals for advancement. He needed her in order to achieve what he had set out to do so long ago, before Galen had deserted him--before they had fallen out--before this mess had begun. He did not care what lengths needed to be taken. He did not care the costs. _

_ He did not care what happened to the girl. He only cared about what she would become. _

_ “Do it.” _

_ He did not ask what would be done to her, for he did not care. Time was ticking and Orson Krennic was a very busy man.  _

_ The doctor nodded and pulled out his holopad, beginning the arrangements. He would not let the director down. He would make a soldier of the girl yet. If it was the last thing he did. _

_ Beyond the glass, the girl began to scream. _

_ *** _

She stood at the entrance of the building, watching from behind her mask as he slid through the crowds of imperials that were gathered in the district. It only took moments for his uniform to fade into the crowd and become one with all the other officers walking along the boulevard. She continued to stand there, ignoring the wary looks given to her by even the highest ranking officers passing by.

Her orders were ringing in her ears: dispose of the boy, find the rebel he was informing, infiltrate.

Somehow Director Krennic had known this man would show up, disguised as the one she had just disposed of--not even one week prior. He had specifically left her behind to clean up the mess created by that security breach on Jedha. She didn’t understand how one man could cause so much trouble for a force such as the empire.

However, her mind did not wonder long on the topic. Afterall, she was merely a soldier. 

There had been word of a rebel moving throughout different systems, trying to obtain any information on the Director’s project that they could. It was only a matter of time before they found the information on their own. The director had given her the information to share with the rebel spy, given her a script to follow--a sad little tale of a girl wanting her freedom, a death trooper defector. A perfect damsel for a rebellion soldier to save; something the rebels could not ignore. 

Her sharing intel with the rebel didn’t impede upon the Empire’s plans. Rather, it created a strategic course of action for them.

The rebels were growing to become an even larger thorn in the Empire’s side, especially as more and more systems flocked to them. Their numbers were ever increasing. Action needed to be taken in order to find a way to stop them before they gained even more power. Uprisings and revolts were happening against the empire everywhere, it was only a matter of time before uneasiness began to grow in the core worlds.

She stared at the busy boulevard for a moment longer, watching as people, droids, and speeders populated the city before her. Then, she turned her back to the streets and returned to the offices of Director Krennic. 

She needed to inform him of her progress.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~*Writing fueled by the Cassian Andor spotify playlist*~


	4. The Rescue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "At the crossroads a second time, make the devil change his mind." - Hugo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UPDATE: This chapter has been reworked, be aware!

“I don’t like this, Cassian. I think you’re being very stupid.”

Cassian was busying himself with preparing for their departure, doing his best to ignore the rather talkative imperial droid standing directly behind him. Kay’s face was expressionless as usual, but his tone was dripping with extra exasperation today. The droid had been programmed to be his right-hand man; sometimes Kaytu took that role too seriously. The droid’s new favorite pastime was giving Cassian unsolicited (but  _ completely _ warranted, in Kay’s opinion, at least) advice.

“Would you do as I asked, for once, Kay?”

His focus was on shoving all his belongings into the small duffle he brought with him on every mission. He had asked K-2SO to send a message to the base, informing them that they were headed back with the information Cassian had spent so long searching for. The information that was so easily handed over to him. His mind kept lingering on the words she had whispered to him in the darkness of that office.

_ A planet killer. Never come back. A world without a mask. _

The words had baffled him since she had whispered them to him just hours before, replaying in his mind like a broken holo. Her warning hadn’t fallen on deaf ears; After leaving her escort, he took a detour to a back alley in the district, where he promptly checked his person for any form of tracking device or bug. When he realized he was clean he swiftly returned to the former residence of Officer Belo, where Kaytu was waiting on him.

He immediately tore the dead imperial officer’s clothes from his body.

The droid had been arguing with him ever since Cassian told him they were returning immediately to Yavin IV. Apparently he believed the word of Imperial Death Troopers should not be trusted. It was hard for Cassian to say he disagreed with the droid there, but the information needed to be shared as soon as possible and it was too risky to send it over the com. Coruscant was the most heavily secured planet in this sector. An outgoing, coded transmission would be noticed immediately.

They also had run dangerously low on resources. This trip had taken more from Cassian than anyone could have expected.

“I still think we should go to Kafrene, to see your informant there. That would be the most beneficial course of action.”  _ And it would possibly make any information learned here invalid _ , Cassian added.

That had been the original plan, before. He had already been in contact with the informant; a partisan from Jedha who had served as his contact for a long while. They were scheduled for a meet-up the following day, however he hadn’t expected his short stay to Coruscant to be so successful. He hadn’t planned on encountering her.

She had lingered in his mind too, along with her words. There was no way he could have bested her in that scuffle; she had been holding back for a reason. She didn’t even fight with the might of a normal storm trooper, let alone a specialized one. For some reason, she wanted to deliver her message to someone--and he had been in the right place at the right time. But now was not the correct time to question her motives.

“The chances of her words being a lie are high, very high.”

Not for the first time, he fully agreed with his companion. There was a high possibility that he was headed straight for a trap, but at this point in his life, he was so desperate that he was willing to risk it. He had dedicated his entire life to this cause. Sometimes, one just needed to have hope in order to continue the fight. His hope was currently placed in the words of a death trooper.

He had a bad feeling about this.

***

The number of ships that entered and exited the Imperial City’s system every day, let alone every hour, was staggering. As the center of the empire, there was always something important happening--some high ranking officer leaving the system for a meeting or returning on leave. The logs and data tracking all these movements was very intricate and only individuals with specialized training were authorized and capable of keeping up with them.

Technician TR-6649 nervously scanned through the logs of ships that had arrived in the system the previous day. His hand twitched as his eyes scanned over the names and callsigns associated with all the ships. Usually this was a task that could be completed rather swiftly. It wasn’t uncommon for audits to be called for, or for a Captain to request access to previous days’ logs.

Never before had the requests come from a death trooper. Especially not the one everyone avoided the most vehemently.

He was very aware of their eyes on his back, watching his every move as he scanned through the records on the screen. Their request had been a tad unorthodox; find any listings of U-Wing ships landing on the system in the past 48 hours--documented or not. There had already been 50 listings he had scrolled through and he was really hoping he would find a listing soon.

The stories he had heard did them no justice. Everyone always spoke of how intimidating they was, a true shadow walker.

Whenever someone high ranking disappeared, their name was always attached to the disappearance. The webs through which Imperial gossip spread were always laced with their callsign, no matter where you were in the galaxy. In the few short years they had been under the command of Director Krennic, there was not a single Academy graduate that did not recognize their achievements for the Empire. What they were lacking in height and size, they made up for in her intimidation factor. 

No one really talked about what they looked like under the mask, or if they were truly even a human, but he could only assume they were gruesome to behold. The rise of DT-4227’s infamy had been swift; no one could remember an academy cadet by that callsign in recent years. It was as if the empire had produced a supersoldier out of thin air. That was the part of their story that instilled the most fear in him.

He wasn’t quite sure what would happen if he didn’t find the listing and he wasn’t about to find out. He was very aware of the blaster strapped to their hip. 

After a moment more, his eyes landed on a promising log. A UT-60D had docked at late night 17 hours ago at a remote hanger bay on the outskirts of the main part of the city. It had been an unscheduled docking, reported in by an imperial friendly that kept an eye on that hanger.

He turned to share the information with them but the trooper was already turned around and walking out the door; they must have been reading over his shoulder. He watched their form disappear through the door and let out a sigh of relief when he could no longer see the black armor.

The rumors about the trooper were more than true, was all he could think as he tried to slow his speeding heart. His comrades from the academy wouldn’t be able to believe him when he told them that he had an encounter with the legendary DT-1 and lived to tell the tale.

***

Landing on Coruscant was a rather tricky ordeal for a Rebellion pilot. The logging systems for landing pads and hangers here was much more advanced than those at most planets they frequented. The empire was very conscious of who entered and exited their most precious system. Luckily for Captain Cassian Andor, however, he was rather good at making  _ friends _ . 

“Kay, go prepare the ship. I’ll need to pay Drax for our stay.”

Kaytu immediately retreated to the ship without sparing Cassian a single word. He had been sulking since their argument in the apartment. He still thought Cassian was making a mistake by collecting only the intelligence from  _ that girl.  _ Usually he was more thorough with his missions. Something about his time spent in that office had unnerved him, Kaytu could tell. He could see how distracted Cassian had been.

He had packed his blaster in his duffle bag, for kriff’s sake.

_ If it would have been an ugly, old man, he wouldn’t have been so willing to forgo the Informant _ , the droid thought distastefully, as he took his seat in the cockpit.

Kay began adjusting settings as he watched Cassian walk towards the man who was considered in-charge of the rundown bay. He knew Cassian (usually) liked to take every precaution available when traveling to Imperial systems, but staying at a hangar bay where he wouldn’t get swindled would not affect their mission statistics much.

Of course Cassian always ignored the warnings when this topic was brought up.

As soon as the credits had been negotiated and transferred, Cassian began walking back towards the ship. Kay began to make the final preparations for take-off. The sooner they could leave, the better. 

Cassian wasn’t even halfway to the ship when the first blaster fire struck the outside of their U-Wing. Suddenly, a squadron of stormtroopers emerged from the other side of the hangar, blasters raised and ready for an ambush. Key let out a mechanical sounds that was as close to a groan as he could get.

“Oh wow, I wonder how the Stormtroopers found us. He was right, the death trooper is completely trustworthy.”

Lazily, the droid stood from the pilot’s seat and walked towards the cargo hold--cursing the judgments of his human counterpart the entire way there.

***

_ The images flashed on the screen before her eyes--lighting up her face as they did so. Her eyes scanned across each image as it appeared, picking out the focal points and the details hidden between the lines. The images were never anything important, always holo-images from meetings or of planets or ships. _

_ “And this one?” _

_ The image was barely in front of her for two seconds before she had already recognized it. A landscape of snowy mountains and a gleaming imperial city. She had never visited this planet, but all the same it was familiar to her. _

_ “The planet Alderaan--a core world.” _

_ The doctor nodded before looking down at his datapad and making a few notes. She never really understood the meaning behind the image test. She felt as though, every day, they showed her the same images. It was inconceivable as to how they were making any progress on whatever it was they were doing. The doctor looked up from his datapad and switched to the next image. _

_ Desert plains were projected onto the screen from the holoprojector. These images always took her an extra second to decode; there were numerous desert planets--analyzing the minute differences between each image, to differentiate which planet she was actually looking at, always slowed her answers when they were shown to her. This image showed a planet with one sun and beige sand. _

_ “Jakku.” _

_ The scientist nodded again. _

_ She didn’t understand why they continually showed her images of planets she would never visit. In all her life, she had never as much as left the confines of the Imperial District of Coruscant. Nine years in one small sector of a planet wide city left a young mind to wonder. Wonder what all these other planets would be like.  _

_ Maybe, one day, the director would allow her to travel. _

_ The next image was one she did not recognize. There was much green making up the landscape. It was hard to tell, but it looked foggy or rainy in the image. She leant forward to get a better look. There were mountains in the background, but what caught her attention was the foreground. Beaches. The ground was made of beaches populated by black sand. _

_ She had never seen such a peaceful looking planet. Whereas she thought Alderaan was the planet she most wanted to visit, this unnamed system was swiftly overtaking that position. _

_ “I do not recognize this one. Is it a new image?” Behind her, the doctor made a noise in response, but she could not tell if it was in confirmation or not. She did not move her eyes from the image. It appeared far more relaxing there than Coruscant--the neverending city was always crowded and filled with too much noise. _

_ “This is Lah’mu--in the outer reaches. You have never heard of it?” _

_ A thought began to tickle the back of her mind, silently screaming at her. What it was saying, she was not certain. Her eyes did not move from the image. She did not know the place, but she wanted to. Something inside her made that very clear. _

_ “No.” A pause. “Is there an academy there?” _

_ The doctor took another moment to record notes. _

_ “There is nothing there.” _

_ She nodded her head, continuing to stare at the screen. Maybe tomorrow he would include images of another new planet for her to review. There were so many planets out there--so many places to see.  _

_ Behind her, the doctor reread the notes he typed on his datapad: _

**_4227: 01200_ **

**_The image of Lah’mu did not incite any recognition today. Fifth day in a row. Displays memories of only Coruscant. Advance to next stage._ **

***

This mission was becoming increasingly difficult for her. She was a rather solitary being; working in such a small unit made it easy to become so. It had been a long time since she had endured this much interaction with other individuals, especially with her comrades in white. She had forgotten how infuriating they were.

Vaguely, she remembered her days in the Academy. Bits and pieces of the three years spent there would flood to her mind when she thought hard enough to pull the memories from the recesses of her mind. Her memory had never been the best; in fact, she found it difficult to remember anything before her entrance to the Academy.

She knew there were days before the academy--there had to be. It was biologically impossible for her life to have begun at age eleven, when she entered the academy--a record young age. Sometimes she could remember different doctors and scientists, looking at photos or videos--one striking image of a planet with black sand always stood out to her in her vague memories. But nothing more.

Her clearest memories were those of Scariff, of her days spent training with the other men of her squadron. She knew she was different from them all; she was much too small, much too independent in her thoughts. The words augmentations had been thrown around alot during her time on Scariff. She knew there was a reason these words were never directed at her.

But that reason always escaped her.

Her entire life was dedicated to the Empire, to the will of Director Orson Krennic. She knew what the others thought of her--they questioned if she were even human. Sometimes, she found herself questioning as well. She was nothing more than a soldier, her words to the rebel spy echoing more truth than anything else she had ever said.

Taking a deep breath, she allowed her eyes to close and her lungs to fill with the filtered air that travelled in through her mask. The chatter of stormtroopers assaulted her ears, causing her to grit her teeth slightly. She could only hope this mission went as planned. She wanted to return to the shadows as soon as possible.

Their transport jostled slightly, catching her off guard and causing her protected head to bang backwards against the wall of the transport.

As her eyes opened, she found herself staring into a pair of brown eyes, attached to an older man. He was sat across from her in the transport, wearing simple farmer's clothes--as per usual. She knew he wasn’t really there, staring at her. He never was. 

She had no idea who he was, or why he appeared before her at times. She had learned long ago to never question anything within this galaxy--especially him. He was a memory of someone long forgotten, most likely from her erased childhood. He was her constant, unwanted companion. Always there to remind her of the acts she committed in the name of the empire.

His dark eyes were staring into her soul, penetrating through the mask. A frown etched deeply into his face.

He was seeing her for the monster she truly was.

Her hand tightened around the blaster it held, as she awaited their arrival at the hangar.

***

The blaster fire hit right above his head and sent sparks falling down over his body.

“ _ Kriff _ .” 

Suddenly Cassian found himself running. He had barely begun to walk back to the ship when the troopers emerged onto the platform. That uneasy feeling from before was more settled in his stomach as he dodged the blaster fire directed straight at him. He found himself diving behind a set of cargo crates to his left in order to take cover.

The trooper had been right earlier; the Empire would find out they were there--because she had told them.

He analyzed the situation: Peering around the crates, he saw at least ten or fifteen troopers in his line of sight. They were moving around frantically, trying to make their way across the crowded platform floor. The troopers were at least forty yards from him, by the entrance to the hangar. Whereas his ship was on the other side of the hangar--right by the gates. At least fifty yards away.

He had chosen the largest, rebellion friendly hanger to land in for a reason. The blaster fire had caused panic and numerous different lifeforms were rushing in every direction.Troopers stationed on Coruscant were trained to be a little more friendly during fire--the Empire couldn’t afford any scandals here. It had created the perfect distraction for him, drawing the attention of the troopers away from his hiding spot, toward the mass panic ensuing on the other side of the hangar.

All his years in the rebellion had prepared him for situations like this. It wasn’t anything he or Kay hadn’t experienced before. In fact, being ambushed probably happened more often than he would like to admit. He could only hope that Kay had finished preparing for take-off, because as soon as he sprinted across the clearing to the ship, they needed to go. He placed his hand on his hip and realized one major flaw in his plan.

His blaster was packed away snuggly in his duffle--which was on the ship. 

He crouched back down behind the crates and closed his eyes, trying to think his way through this situation. Without a pistol he was a very large target. Cassian wasn’t a slow runner, but he also was no amazing athlete. There was no way he would be able to sprint across the hanger to the ship, a good fifty yards or so, and also dodge the rain of blaster fire. In essence, he was bantha fodder.

Keeping his eyes shut a moment longer, he took a deep breath. It was now or never. There wasn’t much another option for him. Troopers were slow but they would reach his post in mere moments. He needed to make his move. Bracing himself for the onslaught, he pushed himself forward and into the madness. If he could be strategic, there was another set of shipping crates he could dodge the fire behind.

Or he could make a full out dash towards the ship.

It took a moment before the troopers had noticed his movement, they had been distracted by a rather aggressive Twi’lek pilot three bays down from his ship. The blaster fire headed toward him in steady streams; somehow he managed to dodge it all. The doors to the ship drew nearer and nearer as he sprinted. It was within his reach. Only a few more paces and he would make it, then he and Kay could escape to another system. Any other system. Even a frozen wasteland would do. 

At the ship, Kay emerged holding a blaster. He could see the cogs turning in the droid, analyzing the situation before making his first move.

He had almost let himself get his hopes up when blaster fire seared into his leg, causing him to lose his footing and drop to the ground. The ground contacted with his body in the harshest manner, causing the bones in his legs to emit a loud crack from pressure. He could feel the muscle on his leg going lame. 

This was much worse than any other ambush he had endured recently. 

The firefight drew nearer and nearer--the other pilots and civilians served as distractions for some of the troopers from him, but they were beginning to retreat. No one was stupid enough to endure a firefight from troopers within the Imperial City, where reinforcements were very readily available. He attempted to push himself off the ground but his leg howled in pain; a spasm went through it and his muscle failed under pressure. Looking down at it, he could see the wound had left a large scorch mark where it hit him. Running would be almost impossible now.

Cassian screamed for Kay, but his voice was lost in the sounds of blaster fire that ricocheted across the hanger. The droid had moved from the ramp and was serving as a guard to their small portion of the bay, firing his blaster at the troopers that were slowly growing nearer and nearer. Slowly, Cassian used his arms and one good leg to push his body forward. He would not give up; not when he was this close to sucessfully completing his mission.

If the scuffle he had in the office was the weirdest skirmish he had ever been in, this would come in at second place--if he survived, that was. The men back at the base would laugh when they heard that the great Captain Cassian Andor had to crawl like a youngling across a hanger bay in the middle of a firefight because he had been stupid and left his blaster in his bag.

He really was losing his touch.

His full attention was on pushing himself towards cover, when a shout to his left caused his head to turn. Suddenly a stormtrooper was approaching him at an alarming speed, it was the first trooper to get past Kay’s line of defense. He pushed his muscles and forced himself to stand; if he was going to go down, he sure as hell was not being shot down while crawling across a dingey hanger floor. The muscle in his leg was screaming; he refused to be taken down with fighting back.

The trooper raised his blaster when he got within close firing range. Cassian couldn’t force himself to look away or close his eyes. He could only hope that when he fell, Kay would deliver the message to the base. He would not fail.

Then a single blaster shot flew through the air.

The trooper fell to the ground as the shot hit him directly in his chest. Cassian turned around to face the direction where the shot had come from. The shot hadn’t come from Kay, who was perched near the ship, protected behind some large crates. The only other logical origin would have been from a civilian who was feeling friendly enough to help out a fallen man--but even that was highly unlikely. The hangar had been mostly cleared out, as people retreated from the troopers.

When he turned and looked up, what he hadn’t expected to see was the gleaming black armor standing mere feet behind him, blaster still raised.

He stared at her for a moment, half forgetting everything happening around them. The pain in his leg was forgotten, as was the band of stormtroopers no doubt making their way towards them. The only thing on his mind was this girl--this death trooper--that had shot one of her own in order to save him. 

She had saved him, right? The blaster aimed at his chest made him uncertain.

As if sensing his uncertainty, she lowered the blaster and began to rush towards him. Kay all but gone from his mind. Cassian stumbled backwards slightly, causing the pain in his leg to flair up. His muscles gave out again and he found himself falling again. This time, however, he never crashed to the floor. Instead, he found himself being supported by a small body covered in hard armor. She turned her body to shield him behind her, somewhat out of the eyesight of the oncoming troopers in white.

“We have to get you out of here,” The static that came out of her helmet was almost undecipherable. Instead of protesting, as he knew he should have done, he merely nodded. His body slouched onto her small one, almost overtaking her, as she practically carried him the last remaining feet onto the ship’s ramp. Her blaster was in the hand that wasn’t wrapped around his body. He hadn’t even noticed Kay retreat from his post and board the ship behind them.

Unceremoniously she dropped him onto the floor of the cargo hold as soon as they were in the ship, before backing away from him. His mind was racing, trying to make sense of this situation. In every scenario he had planned for, having an armed death trooper aboard his ship was not one of them. She could not come along with them--not conscious, at least. His eyes finally noticed Kay board the ship. They had to move fast. He nodded at the droid.

Kay moved swiftly and closed the doors, before turning to face the unwelcome, in his eyes, guest standing in the middle of the cargo hold, looming over his captain. The blaster fire outside seemed to pause for a moment, time stiiled. He hoped Kay understood him.

“What’s she doing here?” Kay questioned, almost willing his eyes to narrow at the trooper. The trooper turned around swiftly at the sound of the droid’s voice, obviously she had not noticed the droid board the ship. He could sense the confusion of the trooper; it was unusual to see a security droid anywhere but within imperial facilities. Especially strange to see one with a rebel spy.

Before the trooper had any time to field questions, however, Cassian watched as Kay deftly swung out an arm towards the trooper. As soon as the droid’s metal arm collided with her armor, he could hear the air leave her body and she quickly dropped to the ground. 

The trooper laid there still for a moment, both Cassian and Kay staring at her. 

“Kay, get us out of here,” Cassian muttered to his companion after a moment, not taking his eyes from the figure lying almost directly at his feet.

The droid didn’t move towards the cockpit. Outside, the sounds of troopers regrouping could be heard. He moved his eyes from the girl to Kay. He tried to will the droid to go--they needed to leave now. It was vital.

“As soon as we’re free from this mess you made, I’m dumping her in space.”

The droid retreated to the cockpit without another word. Cassian could hear him preparing for departure. He wanted to reply to Kay’s statement, but he couldn’t find the words. 

His eyes moved back to her and stayed focused on her body. The droid had swung his arm at her fairly hard, and with the armor on, it was difficult to tell if it had been a fatal blow or not. Slowly, he inched closer to her body. The blaster was still at her side.

It wasn’t smart letting her onto the ship. He should have disarmed her the moment she had gotten close enough to him, no matter how injured he was. He shouldn’t have let her help him onto the ship. This risked everything; this changed everything. She was an imperial--a high ranking and dangerous one. It didn’t matter if she was alive or dead now. Her disappearance would be noticed.

“Kay! Get us out of here, now!” 

The droid didn’t need to be told twice and suddenly they were off, scrambling out of the hangar and away from the firefight. However, Cassian was too distracted to help the droid co-pilot. It was such an odd sight to see. Her bulky armor made her position look even more inhuman. It was unnerving.

Carefully, he reached forward and took a hold of her helmet in his hands, before pulling it off her body. With her eyes closed, she looked even younger than she had in the office. Very slowly, he placed a hand under her nose to see how bad the damage was. 

“Set course for Kafrene.”

The trooper was still breathing. He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Side note: DT-4227 knows what type of ship to look for because she had been hearing word of a rebel moving between systems gathering intel on Director Krennics project.


	5. The Stranger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Of all the strangers, you’re the strangest that I see. I’m not afraid to die.” - Lord Huron

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has been updated (:

Cassian groaned as he pulled the bandage tightly around his wounded leg. The ship didn’t have any bacta patches--he had packed too swiftly when leaving Yavin IV to remember them. So this poor patch up job would have to do until they arrived back at base. He placed the wad of cloth back in the compartment it had been stored in, before turning around and glancing towards the girl.

After they had been safely in hyperspace for a moment, Cassian had forced Kay to help him drag her from the center of the hold and to a corner, so they could prop her up against the wall. He had also made sure to bind her wrists together. He wasn’t going to take any chances with her; she had already helped him two too many times.

The black armor still coated her body, making her form appear as more of a shadow than a human. The blaster she had carried on the ship with her--a repeating blaster, he noted with interest--was safely stored far away from her. Even as eerily still as she was, it was still slightly discomforting to have a death trooper within the walls of his ship. In all his days in the rebellion, he never imagined this scenario would play out for him.

Cassian could not pretend to be an expert on the armor of Stormtroopers, but he had worn it once or twice during his time as a spy. One thing he was an expert on, however, was espionage. The captain knelt down to get on the girl’s level. Slowly, as to not wake her, he reached forward towards the utility belt wrapped around her waist. He wasn’t sure which pocket of the belt she personally kept hers in, but he knew that all trooper armor was equipped with a personal com, as well as one in the helmet.

They were still close enough to coruscant that if he disabled the coms now the residual signals wouldn’t give the imperials much of a trail to track.

Opening each pocket on her utility belt, he pulled out the random odds and ends stored within. Mos of the things within the belt were standard imperial issued tools: a medpac, spare blaster power packs, a grappling hook. The last compartment of the belt held the comlink he was looking for--along with a small piece of paper. He shoved the paper into his pocket without a second glance and placed the comlink on the ground. Standing up to his full height, Cassian stomped on the comlink with his uninjured leg.

The only other place they would hide a tracking component on the girl would be her helmet; he reached to where it had been placed and pulled it to him. Glancing inside the helmet, he noticed how small and confining the space seemed. He couldn’t imagine living life through the scope of one of these. He immediately pushed that thought from his mind as soon as he thought it. Now wasn’t the time to be sympathetic.

He reached inside the helmet and pulled out the audio/visual wires.

Cassian placed the helmet under his arm--he’d have Kay examine it further, just in case. For a second, he allowed his eyes to fall back upon their unexpected travel companion. Under the sleek armor coating her body, he could see the slight rise and fall of her chest. He wasn’t quite sure how long she would be unconscious, but he sure as hell hoped it would be the majority of the trip. He was too exhausted to deal with a confrontation from a trained assassin at that current moment.

He tore his attention from her and made way to the cockpit, where Kay was sitting silently at the controls. Cassian slid into the seat beside the droid, groaning as he did so. He set the helmet on the ground beside his seat. It would take some time before he could move properly again; hopefully the trip to Kafrene was just long enough to do so.

“I see you changed your mind about our destination.” Cassian just hummed in response. The reprogrammed droid always had an opinion on everything and never knew when to not share his thoughts. Right now, Cassian really did not want to hear what the droid had to say on this certain matter, particularly since Cassian was still trying to wrap his head around the situation himself.

“Having her on board is dangerous. I was not joking earlier.” He could feel Kay’s eyes on him but he had no intention of meeting the droid’s gaze. Rather, he stared straight ahead towards the blur of color that was hyperspace. The trip to Kafrene would take a long time; Coruscant was on the other side of the core form Kafrene, in the Expansion sector.

The rebel had no words for his companion; he was just as lost in this situation as the droid was. Had they not needed to leave that hangar as quickly as they did, he most certainly would have left her there. Having an imperial on board, no matter their status, was never good for a Fulcrum. He had planned on returning to Yavin IV with the hints of information she had provided, in order to regroup his trail--Going from Coruscant to the Ring of Kafrene, to Yavin IV included a bit of backtracking. Now he couldn’t afford to return to home base with her aboard the ship.

Something about her, besides the fact that she was a death trooper, was suspicious to him. Not only had she provided him with information he had been surveying the galaxy for, but she also rescued him from her own fellow troopers in the hangar. Not to mention how suspicious it was that she had been in the hangar in the first place. None of her actions added up.

It seemed she wanted him to think she was a defector. It wouldn’t be too difficult to believe that fact--he could assume working as a death trooper wasn’t an enjoyable job for a teenaged girl. However, her extreme lack of human expression made it difficult to see past her status as a death trooper. Imperial defectors weren’t as uncommon as the Empire tried to make it seem. Often, however, defectors avoided being tracked down by the Rebellion.

Whatever her status was, he didn’t much care. For the time being she was their captive. If there was one thing Cassian was taught about having captives, it was to never let an opportunity slide past you. Especially not when that opportunity was in the form of a young girl that more likely than not knew much more than she was letting on.

Remembering the note he had pulled from the girl’s belt, he reached into his pocket and pulled the sip of paper out. It wasn’t especially common for people to carry handwritten notes around with them, especially not members of military organizations who could be captured or killed at any moment. He unrolled the slip and glanced down at it. The paper itself was yellowing and blotchy. The words written on the paper in standard were small; the markings were messy and faded. It almost seemed as if a child had written them.

What was written on the paper was a list, with some words being crossed out. It took him a moment to realize what it was a list of--it was a list of planets.

One planet in particular was circled. Lah’mu.

***

_The white cape billowed behind him as he made way through the gleaming hallways of the research facility. In his shadow were two soldiers in black, flanking him on either side. The crowds of the halls parted as he marched towards his destination. At the end of the hall stood a woman, silver hair refracting the harsh overhead lights lining the halls._

_“Director,” the woman greeted gruffly, saluting the man in white. Orson Krennic waved down the greeting, motioning for the woman to fall into step beside him._

_“Captain Tolvan, how has our friend been doing since my last visit?” Krennic’s eyes swept across the facility’s interior as they made way towards their next stop. All around him he could see scientists and troopers going through their daily motions--most attempting to appear as normal as possible, as to not draw attention their way._

_He had to chuckle at that._

_“Erso is,” a slight pause, “as quiet as usual.” The captain walked rigidly beside the director as they strolled through the halls. Captain Tolvan was head of security at the facility. She had a strong imperial background and was a very dedicated officer. Making her his second set of eyes at the facility was only logical--especially when the most important work in the entire Empire was being conducted within these walls._

_“He reports to his lab on time, takes exactly 17 minutes for lunch every day, and usually stays in the lab much longer than required of him. He has no friends; he makes no point to socialize. He is a very predictable man.”_

_This was interesting news to Krennic. The Galen Erso he had known form before was much more than predictable. But, that was before. Before Orson had uprooted the man’s family. Before he had taken his daughter and begun her transformation._

_“Very well. I am glad to hear the work here is on schedule.”_

_The captain nodded and paused before a door, placing her hand over the security lock. After the scan was accepted, the door opened and she ushered her guests through. In the middle of the wide laboratory they entered was a solitary man, leant over a desk._

_At the sound of the door opening, the man leant up and turned--tired eyes glancing over the group as they approached him._

_Galen Erso’s lips pulled into a tight line as he took in the forms of his visitors._

_“Galen, how happy I am to see you.” The captain and troopers remained a few steps back as the Director approached his once friend. His arms were stretched wide as he approached the scientist--an empty show of charisma Erso made no move to reciprocate._

_“Director Krennic, how nice of you to come by.” The greeting came out gruff and void of emotion, causing Orson’s grin to widen. The pull he had over the once powerful Galen Erso was most impressive. A feat he continually marvelled at._

_“I wish to hear of your progress.”_

_The scientist remained silent for a moment, his eyes falling back down to the sketches stretched across the lab table in front of him. Krennic could see how the man's fist tightened and loosened; he could almost sense the internal conflict running through the empire's most prized intellectual._

_“Tell me of my daughter first.” The words came out as an almost whisper, so soft Krennic almost wasn’t sure he heard the man clearly. However, he had; a wide grin came across his face as he registered the request. He was glad to see his bargaining chip was still paying off._

_He clapped a hand to the man’s back, a glint in his eye as the scientist looked up at him._

_“Your daughter is most impressive. She’s a very intellectual girl and looks just like her mother.” Orson thought he heard a choked noise escape Galen’s throat, but he wasn’t sure. He turned away from the man and had walked towards the window that lined one of the walls. His eyes looked out into the vast landscape before him, watching at the perpetual rain fell from the sky._

_“In fact, she just began her training at the academy not five days ago. She will be a very promising recruit.”_

_A loud clang sounded behind the director, causing him to look away from the window and back towards Galen. Apparently, his old friend had not liked the news he brought. The man had knocked his chair away from his body and was now advancing towards the director._

_“How dare you-,” Before Galen could get too close, however, his guards stepped in and pulled the scientist back, holding him still against their towering bodies. “She’s only a child--she isn’t old enough! She isn’t a pawn of the empire!”_

_The words caused Krennic’s eyes to gleam as he looked at his once esteemed colleague. The man was once the most respected scientist in the whole empire; he was still highly regarded, however, looking at him now, it was easy to see how far Galen Erso had fallen. He appeared completely mad as he thrashed against the troopers._

_“I have a feeling, Galen, you wouldn’t be saying that if you saw her now.”_

_The two men stared at each other, a battle of wills playing out in the silent room._

_“I’ll destroy all my plans. If you make her attend the academy, i’ll ruin it all.”_

_At those words, Krennic let out a shrill laugh. It echoed throughout the lab, catching the Captain and scientist off guard at the sound. The smile stayed on his face as he took a step forward, standing now not even a foot from his old friend. He quirked his head to the side and raised a brow._

_“If you do that, my old friend, I dare say your precious daughter won’t survive to her next name day. After all,” the gleam returned, “training accidents happen all the time.”_

_He watched as the scientists teeth clenched, before he dropped his head in resignation._

_Yes, the girl was serving her purposes perfectly._

***

The deep cold that came along with space travel was never something unusual to her. In her years of service to the Empire, she had been taken to many different planets--seen numerous worlds. However, usually she knew where they were going and whom she was with. This time was the lone exception.

The first thing she noticed when she regained consciousness was the fact that her wrists were bound together far too tightly for it to be considered comfortable. The second was that she was still wearing her full set of armor, sans helmet.

The third thing she noticed was that her utility belt had been raided--most likely for the personal comlink she kept in there.

The pain she felt in her head was distracting and it took her a moment to remember where she was and why she was in such pain. _The droid, the captain, rebels._ It all came back to her after a second and she wanted to groan, but stopped herself before the noise escaped her body. She was on a mission--she would not behave in such a manner. It was unbecoming of a soldier of her rank.

DT-4227 allowed her eyes to wander around. She had no idea how long it had been since they had left the hangar, nor did she know if anyone had seen her enter the ship with the rebel captain. In fact, as this current moment, she knew far less than she was used to--an unsettling fact. She knew that would come with the nature of her mission but it felt wrong to her. Being unsettled was something she had not felt for quite some time.

A sound coming from the cockpit made her glance move in that direction. An imperial droid sat in one of the captain’s chairs. That droid was the one to knock her out; it was a strange sight, seeing an imperial intelligence droid teamed up with a rebel spy. He must have found the droid and reprogrammed it--otherwise, droids were not known to be defectors. Why anyone would go through the trouble of doing that, she had no idea. Surely the rebel alliance had their own droids they could have issued him. Not that she cared much on the subject either way.

Sat beside the droid, in the other captains chair, was the Captain. Both of their backs were to her, meaning they had yet to realize she had woken up. She knew she was supposed to be here, per the Director’s commands, but her instincts were calling for her to do something--to try and escape. She very much did not like the prospect of traveling to an unknown location with two rebels and her hands tied together.

This is the exact situation she had been trained to get out of in the academy, not purposefully put herself into.

As she allowed her eyes to continue roaming, she noticed that in between the two rebels sat her helmet. As the droid is the one to have knocked her out, she couldn’t much imagine it to have been the one to remove her helmet. Therefore, the man must have done so.

It was an odd feeling, knowing another had removed her helmet from her body. Her armor was state of the art--no one but she ever handled it. Not to mention it was an invasion of personal space to ever touch another imperial trooper’s helmet. They were never removed save by the wearer--not until the trooper has fallen. Knowing he had done so, that he had gotten that close to her, she wasn’t sure how to process the information.

This meant he had seen her bare face twice.

The first time had been unavoidable. She had needed to gain his trust, or at least a semblance of trust, in that moment in order to set her plan into course. On any other circumstance she would have kept her face hidden. The Belo boy, the secret trader, was the last person outside her unit to have seen her bare face. She could still see his lifeless eyes when she closed her own.

Being unmasked was a feeling she didn’t much like. It left her vulnerable; something she was told to never be. Something she never could be.

She let her eyes wander from the cockpit to the rest of the ship. The hull wasn’t anything special--an open space with a small bench in the center. It was definitely a transport vessel for troops. She noticed with interest that there were a few bags set against the opposite side of the hold. For a moment she contemplated quietly moving to inspect the bags, but reconsidered when she thought of how awkward it would be considering the state of her bound hands.

When she had received reports of a U-Wing class ship entering various systems, carrying a man searching for answers about the Director’s project, she hadn’t known what to expect upon finding the man or the ship. Neither was what she had anticipated. For starters, she hadn’t expected the man--the captain, as his jacket insignia claimed--to be as young as he was. She knew she was young, imperials mentioned it in whispers quite often, but she never imagined the rebel alliance to also have young soldiers.

In fact, she never much questioned anything about the rebel alliance or the empire. She never questioned the history between the two groups, nor did she question the cause she was fighting for. She was a good soldier in that manner. An exemplar, the director had called her often. She would not begin to do so now.

Resigned, she leant back into the wall and accepted her fate. She had done as the director asked. She delivered the message and infiltrated--time would tell how far she would go on this mission. The words had not been spoken by the director, but she knew they didn’t need to be spoken--she wasn’t expected to return to his side following this mission.

As soon as she learned any valuable information she was expected to com it in, no matter the lengths she needed to go. Since the comlink that was stored in her belt now sat in crumbles at her feet, that part of the mission had become more complex than expected. Another factor of the mission weighed on her as well.

In all the informational briefings she had been given, she was never told of an extraction plan. That only meant one thing: she was expected to serve the empire in the ultimate way.

Up until this point she hadn’t let her mind drift to those thoughts about the mission; she much rather preferred to focus on the next immediate step. But in the back of her mind she knew this time was coming. She had never expected to live a long life. Her existence had been entirely devoted to the empire and to Director Krennic. It was only fitting.

With her head leant against the wall, she allowed her eyes to close. It wouldn’t have been difficult for her to escape these bindings. Neither the droid nor the rebel bothered to check her armor completely for knives; the small compartment in her backplate remained untouched. It wouldn’t have been hard to overtake either of them and force the information she needed from them--taking control of their ship in the process and thus extending her time. But she didn’t care enough to try.

She was a good soldier, she always had been. Director Krennic expected this of her and she would not stray from the plan. She would convince these rebels that she was a defector. She would learn their secrets. Then, she would allow herself to return to the shadows.

***

Her eyes were on him as soon as he stood from his captains chair. He had been aware she was awake for quite some time--almost as soon as she had woken up. He wasn’t quite sure how she would have reacted; he expected something--her to lash out, to try and take control of the ship, something. But instead she had done nothing.

He had watched her eyes roam across the ship, lingering a little too long on his duffle bag, before she leant her head back and closed her eyes. Then she sat there silently. He would have thought she had fallen asleep had he not known better; she was a soldier, she was trained better than that.

It was better to give her time to process her current situation than immediately interrogate her, Cassian had rationalized with himself. That way she would be more level-headed, less likely to attack him out of fear. Internally, however, he knew those were false worries. She was a trained specialist; any attack from her would be more calculated. Rather, he was worried for selfish reasons. He needed time to consider how to approach her.

Cassian was well versed in interrogations; normally, he would have felt no hesitations in regards to interrogating a prisoner. Her case was increasingly different from any other he had handled. It required a more careful approach than he usually took with imperials--he could not risk losing an opportunity to learn more information from this girl.

With her eyes still trailing him, he moved into the hull towards her. She was sat in the same spot he had placed her in after Kay knocked her out, facing towards the bench in the center of the hold. Silently he sat down on the bench in front of her. She looked across his face in a way that made her look much more tired that she had appeared in the office upon their first meeting. The blank expression he had seen then in her eyes had been replaced by something else.

Something even less alive.

“What is your name?”

He didn’t much care about the answer, but he figured it was the easiest question to start out with. He wasn’t sure how forthcoming the girl would be with information--it was better to try and warm her to him. He wanted this to seem less like an interrogation and more of a conversation. Maybe she would be more forthcoming that way.

In response to his question, she chuckled slightly--a sound that was almost foreign coming from her--and her eyes lazily dragged up to meet his. She seemed to contemplate him for a moment.

“DT-4227.”

His lips pressed together in a thin line. It appeared she was going to make this much more difficult for the both of them than it truly needed to be. Cassian let his eyes wander across her body, curled up into the wall making her look even more like a little girl than he could have expected from someone wearing imperial armor. For a brief moment he wondered about her history.

“It would be better for you to cooperate with me.”

She took a long pause, seeming to take into consideration what her next words would be.

“I have no name. Only the codename.”

Her words shouldn’t have come to a surprise to Cassian; he knew stormtroopers were people. For quite some time academies had been recruiting and training men and women just like him to become soldiers for the empire. The time of clones had been long gone. This girl wasn’t a clone--he knew what their faces looked like. They were imprinted into his childhood memories.

She couldn’t have possibly always been a trooper. There was always a before: before a child joined the academy they had a name, a family. Those memories weren’t erased, from what he knew. Either she was lying or she was an exception to normality. At this point, he knew she could be either. His face tightened at the thought.

“What were you doing in that hangar? How did you know that is where we would be? Why did you let me go, just to chase after me?”

Those were the thoughts that had been plaguing him for the past hours as he sat in silence in the cockpit. It was as if her actions were pieces of different puzzles, mixed together in the same pie--unable to fit together. He could understand letting him leave the office as an individual act--maybe she had been feeling guilty at the moment, or something had happened to her to cause her to doubt her allegiances.

But mix in her bringing a squadron of troopers to the hangar, then killing one of her own? It didn’t mix. Not to a rational person like Cassian, at least. He was a strategist, someone trained to read people. In this girl, he saw nothing to read. Her face was perfectly blank; there was no expression to give anything away. It was unnerving.

Her face remained blank as she shifted her eyes from him towards the cockpit. Cassian could almost see the flashing lights of hyperspace flying by reflecting in her eyes.

“I was ordered to track a ship that had been planet hopping for quite some time--this ship. Why I arrived in the hangar, I realized you were the man I had been assigned to obtain.” She paused. Her voice was perfectly even, monotone even. It matched her expression.

“Then you were shot and on the ground and I thought of the words I said to you in the office.”

_Sometimes I dream of a world where I don’t wear a mask--where I can walk on the beach without a blaster at my side. Someday I want to experience that sort of freedom for myself._

Then, Cassian thought to the list of planets burning a hole in his pocket. The planets on the list all had water--they all had beaches. Especially Lah’mu.

“I told you I have no name. I have no autonomy. Leaving with you could change that.”

Her voice remained flat and quiet, but as soon as those words left her, she looked up to him. Behind the blank expression on her face, he could see something in her eyes. It was dim, but it was there.

They remained silent for a long moment, refusing to look away from one another. Cassian still was not sure she could be trusted. There were still many holes in what she was saying. The idea that she was telling the truth, however, was something unfathomable to him. Deep down, even though he knew he shouldn’t, he wanted to believe her. He wanted her to be a defector.

But years of training had ruined his soft and trusting nature and transformed him into something else; something coarse and unrefined. No matter what sort of sap story she fed him, he knew he couldn’t believe her. He wouldn’t allow himself that. It was not in his future to be burned by a girl who could or could not be an imperial spy.

For right now, however, she was a girl trapped within the confines of his ship with nowhere to go. He had time to consider what to do with her.

Cassian was the one to break eye contact; he glanced forwards towards Kay. He knew they were only halfway into the trip, with hours still to go. And he had no intentions of spending that time interrogating a girl who was more cryptic than he cared to deal with at the moment. Slowly, as to not strain his leg wound, he stood and turned to make way back to his seat in the cockpit.

“What is your name?”

The question was no more than a whisper--almost as if carried in by the wind. But there was no wind in the middle of hyperspace.

 _Fulcrum_ , he wanted to say. A codename for a codename. He had the choice to hide his name; he had a name to protect. But as he stood with him back to her, he contemplated. Even if she was lying about being a defector, she wouldn’t live long enough to share the information with anyone. And he knew she didn’t want an answer to report it back to her superiors.

She wanted to know because she had no name. A novel concept.

His reply was just as soft as her question.

“Cassian Andor.”

 


	6. The Informant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The colder the heart, the warmer the gun." - Houndmouth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so very sorry about the infrequency of my updates. It's very hard to balance student teaching, working, social life stuff, and free time. Hopefully I'll get better at time management but most likely not, lol.  
> Also, thank you very much to everyone who comments! I love reading everyone's thoughts on the story & some comments have even inspired some plot moments in this story.  
> Enjoy!
> 
> UPDATE: This chapter is v different from the original (:

_ It came at her before she even saw it; slamming into her face and knocking the wind out of her.  _

_ Her eyes narrowed at the boy standing across from her, his arms raised in fists. A grin was on his face, taunting her. He was bigger than her--they all were. She was the smallest person in her training group, the youngest at the Academy. That didn’t stop her, though. It made her work harder. _

_ The small girl steadied her feet and clenched her teeth, looking to the boy and analyzing what her next movement should be. A twitch of his left foot caught her attention and, before either of them knew it, she lunged at him and her shoulder slammed into his lower stomach--forcing him to fall backwards and onto the mat. _

_ She was small, but she was fast. _

_ Relentlessly, she pounded into the boy. It only took a moment for him to fall still under her. But she didn’t stop. She didn’t even realize what was happening until two other cadets had pulled her away from the boy and were having to restrain her. All she could see was the need to rove herself, the need to prove that she belonged there as much as any of these other kids. _

_ “4227!,” Commander Lonze called out to her, catching her attention and causing her thrashing to finally stop. Her eyes snapped up to him, a fire behind her usually dull irises. Her breathing was harsh as she kneeled over the now bleeding boy. Behind her adrenaline fueled gaze, she barely registered how still he was. _

_ “Tag him to the medic,” the commander shouted to two other cadets, before directing his attention back to the girl. “The purpose of this exercise was self-defense. What you just demonstrated was pure rage. Doing something reckless like that in the field would not only put yourself in harm's way, but also your squadron. A stupid decision.” _

Worthless _.  _

_ He didn’t have to say the word for her to know he was thinking it. She had never done anything right. She was too sympathetic, or she was too stoic. She was too opinionated, or she did not respond appropriately. No matter what she did, it was becoming harder and harder for her to find her place within the academy. All she wanted was to fit in. That’s all she ever wanted.  _

_ “Yes, Commander. I understand, Commander.” With her head bent down low, she exited the sparring mats to stand near the other cadets. As she approached them, they all shifted slightly away from her--distancing themselves from the strange child soldier. The one who would shed the blood of another in the name of the empire. _

_ The freak. _

_ Closing her eyes, she took in a deep breath. She wouldn’t give up. This was all she had ever known. Ever since she could remember, from her time in Coruscant, all she had ever been groomed for was serving the empire. She would not fail the Director now. Not after everything he has done for her. _

_ “I shall have to inform the Director of this.” _

_ She nodded silently. She would do better. She needed to do better. _

_ Her fist clenched in determination. _

_ *** _

“Is your neural tissue rotting or are you just stupid?”

Cassian grit his teeth together as he forced his arms into the sleeves of his jacket; struggling to do so while leant against the wall, taking his weight off his wounded leg. He didn’t even want to think of the pain he would have been in, had she not drug him to the ship him. He didn’t really want to think of the ‘good deeds’ she had done for him at all, actually. Not with his current plans hovering in the back of his mind.

From his position in the cockpit, he could still see her. She hadn’t moved since their conversation, if you could even call it that--which was hours ago. Slender arms were wrapped around small legs, curled into a ball and pressed deeply into the side of the ship. Her head was leant down and, if Cassian didn’t know any better, he would have said she was asleep. But he knew much better.

After all, he was just like her. And he wouldn’t have allowed himself to fall asleep in the middle of a mission--not by his own choice, at least.

The words she had said to him still hung in his mind. How does one not know their name? She had to have been called something--something more than a number. At one point, she had to have had a family; a mother and father that loved her, cared for her, named her. Stormtroopers arent always soldiers; they had started as recruits.

They had started as normal people. As sons, daughters, children. Hadn’t she too?

“Did you, or did you not, notice how her friends stopped shooting at us the second we took off out of the bay? There was only a 35.7 percent chance we were going to make it out of there fully functional.” The reprogrammed imperial droid whispered, or what Cassian assumed was supposed to be a whisper, angrily at his companion. It was very easy to tell what side of the debate Kay was on, in regards to their guest.

“She wanted to come with us, Cassian. And you want her to go with you to meet the informant? That will only result in someone being shot.” Kay turned his head to look straight at Cassian. “And by someone I mean you.”

The rebel rolled his eyes at his friend and slowly, painfully, slid into the co-pilot seat beside him. He leant forward slightly, grimacing as the motion put new pressure on his wound, in order to check the system diagnostics. 

He could feel the eyes of the droid lingering on him.

“Bringing her along meant getting out of Coruscant safely,” came his whispered response. There was a high likelihood that she was trying to listen in on them. Everything about her seemed to be heightened--her skills with a blaster, her strength, her emotional ineptitude. Who knew how good her hearing was? 

“Once we get to Kafrene, I have no more use for her. I can dispose of her there, where it wouldn’t be suspicious.” The words came out as an emotionless whisper. He found himself imagining her at the end of his blaster’s barrel. Her blank eyes staring into his. His lips pressed together tightly at the thought.

“Play if off as a mugging or common marketplace dispute.” Kay went silent at his words. 

Cassian did not talk much about the work he did for the rebellion. He didn’t share war stories with the younger men when they asked. He never told stories of his victorious missions. No matter how successful a mission went for the captain, he always lost something in the end. With every completed mission, with every life sacrificed to him for the good of the rebellion and it’s cause, Cassian Andor cut away at his already diminishing humanity.

He stared ahead blankly, thinking about how the imperial underling masquerading as a young girl, not even ten meters from him, was the next one to chip a piece of his soul away.

***

The Ring of Kafrene was a mass of durasteel and plastoid, anchored to a pair of withering planetoids, located within the Kafrene asteroid belt. Originally, it had been intended to serve as a mining colony; built by Old Republic nobility, it was a symbol of the wealth of days gone by. The lack of actual materials of value in the belt had led the ring to it’s current disappointing state, accompanied by its fitting slogan:  _ Where Good Dreams Go Bad _ .

Now, the Ring merely served as a deep-space trading post and stopover spot for this sector’s most desperate of Travelers. At this point in his life, Cassian Andor could definitely count himself in the second category.

The trooper followed closely behind him as they shoved their way through the crowded alleys. He could almost feel her presence as they moved through the masses, she was so close to him. Cassian found himself continually glancing over his shoulder at her, making sure she was not considering wandering off--or worse. 

They were running behind schedule and he knew that if they hadn’t drawn attention during their disembarkation, they definitely were now. He may have been shouldering lifeforms and droids from his path, but her actions were the more curious of the two. 

Every time anything--be it a human, droid, inanimate object--got even within an inch of her, she flinched away from it, as if any form of physical touch to her body would do her immediate harm. It was an interesting sight to see, coming from a trained member of a death squad--one that drew too many questions to mind. It made him wonder how much time she spent outside of that armor. Seeing her walking through the crowded streets of Kafrene, wearing nothing but her black shirt and pants, and an older jacket he found in a crate on the ship, she looked very much out of place. Getting her to remove her armor had been a more difficult task than expected, especially for a supposed defector.

It was as if she didn’t know how to function as a normal human.

Whatever the reasons for her actions, they were beginning to draw eyes in their direction. The people here were observant, they needed to be in order to survive. Nothing strange or out of place missed their attention--including her. He paused his stride to let her walk up beside him. Letting his eyes discreetly scan the area around them, he leant down to whisper at her.

“Stop flinching when people get too close. It is beginning to look suspicious. I will not be shot again because of you.” She didn’t flinch away as he leant in to her.

His words were met with a blank stare and a nod. His lips pursed and he looked down at her. A part of him wondered what emotions looked like on her face; he wondered, very briefly, when the last time she smiled was--if she ever had. The thought stayed in his mind only a moment before he was turned from her and continued along his path, allowing her to once again become his shadow.

Between the road they were on and the distant rock warrens were collections of shoddy-looking shacks that served as housing units for the unfortunate beings that called this rock home. His pace was ever increasing; he had to force himself to match the tempo of the foot traffic around him--all while keeping on eye over his shoulder, watching the trooper as she followed along. He noted that her flinching had become almost nonexistent. Her movements unnaturally robotic.

They cut across the street and instantly a strong smell of ammonia hit him head on--exhaust from an alien housing complex. He suppressed his cough, but the girl hadn’t been able to. She must have been too used to her mask, forgetting that in the real world gases aren’t automatically filtered out of the atmosphere for you. More eyes were drawn to her. 

They continued to work their way through the maze of alleys until they reached a dead-end alleyway, barely large enough for the two of them to stand in. They lingered in the alleyway for a moment, standing side by side in a tense silence. Cassian had to force his eyes away from the small trooper beside him, pushing the thoughts of what needed to be done from his mind.

“I was about to leave,” a voice said, full of nervous irritation.

The owner of the voice emerged from the shadows. He was a human with a soft, round face, and hard eyes. His appearance looked much like the others who frequented this part of the sector: clothes were stained and faded, face haggard and tired. His right arm was limp in a sling. It made Cassian think of the limp he was currently walking with. He listened to the sounds of the street: voices, something sizzling, someone screaming. No commlinks. This location would do.

In the back of his mind, he remembered the trooper in disguise standing directly behind him. He hoped Tivik would remain clueless enough to ignore her presence; that would be the easiest option. Instinctively, Cassian shifted slightly, naturally, to further hide her behind him. 

“I came as fast as I could,” Cassian told him. The trooper seemed to notice his want to keep her hidden; he could feel as she backed away from him--most likely retreating slightly into the shadows of the alley. A movement which made Cassian more weary of the girl than he already had been.

However, Tivik was a man on edge and nothing was getting past his watchful and fretting gaze.

“Who is she? I thought you said only you would be meeting me.” Cassian cursed silently as he heard the tension in his tone; if only she hadn’t moved. He should have known bringing her wouldn’t be this easy. Tivik wasn’t known for being the most calm of people. Actually, he was probably the most skittish informant the rebellion had ever had. Just perfect.

“She is no one,” he paused, realizing this wouldn’t calm the man, “Just a trainee of mine. Nothing to cause you fear.” If only the man knew the truth. The thought caused his lip to lift a bit.

The man seemed to accept Cassian's words after a long moment of hesitation. He let his eyes move from the captain to the girl standing behind him; Tivik’s eyes slid up and down her form, most likely taking in account how small she was and how innocent she appeared in that moment. His eyes narrowed slightly and nodded, before he started towards the pair.

Cassian hoped this man’s information was better than his deductive skills.

“I have to return to my ship soon. Walk with me.” He didn’t even glance towards the girl again as he said the words, seeming to label her as a non-threat. Stupid.

“Where is your ship headed?” Cassian thought back to the words she had whispered to him in the office. Her initial warning from earlier that day.  _ Death Star, Planet Killer, Message _ . He desperately wanted to know how much of her words were true. He wanted to find out what game she was playing. But now wasn’t the time. There never would be a time; soon, their adventure together would end.

“Back to Jedha?”

***

She stared curiously over the rebel’s, Cassian, shoulder towards the man that was betraying the empire right before her eyes.

His appearance was extraordinarily average. It was easy to tell the man was fearful of something; every few seconds his eyes would dart to another part of the alley, as if on the lookout for imperial guards. How ironic.

Never before had she been to a place like the one this captain had brought her to--at least, not on her own. It was very seldom that she departed from Coruscant without being in the presence of Director Krennic, and she knew for fact the Director would not dare come to a place as questionable as this. 

He was too important for a backwater hole like Kafrene.

Without the black armor coating her body, she felt completely bare. It was strange to think that as she walked down the street, following after the captain, that people could see her face. They would look at her and see a person. 

When they gazed upon her face in passing, what story did their minds generate for her? To these strangers, she was just like every other face in the crowd. Her armorless presence did not strike fear into faces and hearts. The did not look upon her and feel hatred. She had never experienced that before.

The lifeforms here were so interesting. Everyone--humans, droids, other lifeforms--rushed about the streets with heads down trodden. There was no laughter, no children running around the streets gleefully like she had seen in the educational videos shown to her in the Academy. Where was the prosperity the Empire claimed to serve its subjects? Rather, these people cowered before the Empire. She was beginning to realize she knew very little about the galaxy. 

Stormtroopers lingered on street corners; they marched up and down alleyways, patrolling for illegal activity--for action against the Empire. In the short walk they had taken from the ship, she had seen more armed stormtroopers in one square mile than she had thought possible for a desolate place like this. With every shift of her eyes, a new trooper appeared. What was the point in wasting imperial resources here? 

Then there was the Captain. Cassian.

He was continually intriguing to her. He was willing to allow her close to him, but she knew he held no trust for her. He allowed himself to be alone with a member of an elite death squad without second thought, dragging her to a dark alley to meet with a man that would offer nothing in terms of back-up. He had allowed her to keep her blaster even when the droid had continually warned him against it.

He had given her clothes. 

Now he stood before her, back facing her. It would be so easy for her to take both of them out--no one would notice. A mere flick of the blaster at her side and she could return to the Director. But what would she tell him? She had learned nothing of the rebellion; the Captain hadn’t allowed her to. Rather, he kept her in the dark. Where she belonged.

All of this information was inconsequential. It didn’t matter how the citizens of an outpost such as this were treated by the empire; it didn’t matter that a man had been decent towards her. In the grand scheme of things, none of this mattered. All that mattered was her ability to collect the information she was sent here for--for her to learn what the rebellion has planned before they learned too much in return.

Besides, she could only imagine what the soldier had planned for her following this rendezvous. 

Just as her hand twitched at her side, hovering above the blaster at her waist, she heard movement in the distance. Positioned to block the entrance, as Cassian had done to the informant, were two figures in white armor. Their rifles were hoisted and aimed right at the trio. For a split second, in her bare nature, she understood the urgency and cautious movements of the people scattered through the streets.

Before her, shielding her from the troopers line of sight, she heard Cassian mutter a silent curse. The informant had gone deathly pale, entire body frozen in pure fear. She could see sweat accumulating on his face, body shaking in nerves. She didn’t want to know if this was how people reacted in her presence. 

She had a feeling the fear she struck in man ran much deeper than this. She frowned.

***

He was already getting tired of seeing stormtroopers what felt like every twenty minutes.

“What’s all this?” The stormtrooper’s voice buzzed with distortion. However, compared to the girl’s mask, their distortion was less subdued. Their voices sounded human, barely affected by the mask they wore. The noises emitted from her helmet were nothing like these; hers were the stuff of nightmares. 

The trooper was curt and authoritative, but not scared. Cassian could work with that. 

“Hey,” Cassian gave them an exaggerated shrug and glanced, from the corner of his eye, at the girl behind him. Her eyes were trailed on the trooper, as if discretely sizing them up. He wasn’t sure what she was planning but he knew didn’t want to know. Without thinking about it, his hand moved out and he placed it on her elbow, as if to hold her back--to say he had this covered. Her eyes flashed to his and, for a flash moment, he felt he could see surprise and some other, unknown expression in them.

He felt her go stiff under his touch.

“Just me, my girl, and a friend. If we’re bothering someone, we’ll get out of the way--”

“You’re not leaving.” It was the second trooper that interrupted him, his voice growing impatient. He motioned to all three of them. “Show us some scandocs.”

Cassian kept his eyes off Tivik, off the girl. There was no way he could make the informant play along, to urge him to make no move. Even more troubling, he had no idea what she would be planning. For all he knew, she could turn him over to these two troopers and be on her way. She was continually doing the unexpected--now was not the time to underestimate her.

“Of course,” he said. “My gloves?”

He indicated toward a pocket with a small gesture. The stormtroopers didn’t object. Thieves were commonplace in places like Kafrene, and these two had probably seen stranger hiding spots for documentation.

His hand slid into the pocket and his fingers wrapped around the cool metal of his blaster. This was second nature to him. However, before he had time to pull the blaster out, the girl had pushed past him and was now standing between him and the troopers.

He silently cursed and closed his eyes, waiting to hear the words spill from her mouth. For her to turn them over and escape before he could complete his mission. He had made it so far; he was so close to success. It was only fitting that she be the one to take that away from him. 

“You will let us go free, you don’t need to see our scandocs.” Cassian's breath caught in his throat. Of all things he expected her to say, that hadn't even been on the list. He slowly pulled his hand from his pocket and watched her, wondering how this scene would play out. 

The stormtroopers seemed to need a moment to recognize her appearance before them. She had been decently hidden behind him before, her small body acting as a shadow to him. Then they raised their blasters even higher, aimed straight for her--centered on her chest. 

“And why would we allow that? Present your docs before we take you in.”

Her face was stoic as she stared at them. The look on her face was unnerving; he wondered if that was the look she had on her face as she completed missions while hidden underneath the mask. 

Slowly, she reached into the pocket of the jacket he had provided her with and she pulled out something black in her hand. He could see the tightness of her grip as she held it, her fingers pressed deeply into the material. She held it up before the troopers, to show that it wasn’t anything dangerous, before passing it over to them. 

The first trooper looked over the black artifact. Cassian watched intrigued as he turned it over in his hands, before finding something presented on the face of the doc to focus on. Time almost seemed to slow as they all stood in the small alley, waiting for this trooper to make a decision on his next action.

Suddenly, as if called to urgent command, he snapped his legs together and dropped one arm to the side. The black artifact secured in his hand at his side.

Then he saluted her.

“DT-4227, I was not aware that you would be on Kafrene. I apologize for interfering with your business.”

She had given them her documents, he suddenly realized. He silently cursed himself--now the empire would know they were here, that she was here. By doing this, she was creating a trail for them to follow her on. This was not what he had wanted. These troopers would share that they ran into an imperial guard out of uniform, traveling with a man of his description. This was even worse than what would happen had Cassian pulled the trigger.

“Yes. Director Krennic will be very pleased to hear how you two have interrupted a very important imperial mission. Should you like to keep your post, as well as avoid reconditioning, I would recommend you walk away instantly and tell no one what you witnessed here. If asked about your patrol today, you will report that nothing inconspicuous happened in your sector. Is this clear?”

Cassian had never heard so many words fall from her mouth. The tone in which she spoke was one of definite authority, like she was used to being the one giving commands, not taking them. He wasn’t entirely sure how the hierarchy of Imperial soldiers went, as well as the trickle-down of authority in their ranks, but he was assuming she must have been rather high. It was unnerving to realize someone who could command troops was traveling in disguise with them.

“Yes, Commander. Sorry. We will file no such reports. Continue your business.” 

The two troopers saluted her, before the one handed her docs back. Together, the pair swiftly walked away. Cassian watched their forms retreat for a moment, before he glanced back at her. She, too, was staring at their retreating forms. Tivik was staring at her in horror. 

“Why did you do that? You’ve given away our location to the empire. They will know we were here.” The words left his mouth in an angry jumble. Nothing she did made any sense to him. Whatever plan she had seemed discombobulated and all over the place. Her random actions were beginning to negatively affect him and endanger the mission he was soon to complete. 

She gave him a rueful look, her usually blank face slightly downturned. 

“You need not worry. They will not disobey me.”

She unholstered the gun at her hip and raised it, shooting both stormtroopers in the back as they retreated from the alleyway. 

Her face remained stoic as she did so.


	7. The Guilt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I wish I was a slave to an age-old trade; Lord have mercy on my rough and rowdy ways." - The Head and the Heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UPDATE: SO DIFFERENT FROM THE ORIGINAL

_ “Are these the results?”  _

_ The director stepped closer to the table, different data projections on display before him. Various charts and graphs, numbers and lists, photographs and videos kept his eyes constantly moving from display to display. He wasn’t quite sure what to focus on first. As if sensing this, the only other man in the room--a scientist much older than the director--stepped forward to stand beside him. _

_ “Every piece of data we have collected on the girl is here, from her first entrance into the academy onwards. Here,” he pointed to one set of graphs, “are analytics on her tactile skills.” Orson Krennic let his eyes run over the numbers, which were very impressive--for anyone, let alone a child of only 14 years. _

_ “Here is data collected on her intelligence.” The men barely glanced at the data, both knowing it would be high based solely on lineage. It would be surprising otherwise. _

_ “And here, the most interesting piece, is the data collected on emotions and behavior.” _

_ Orson glanced down at the data, eyes scanning over the words printed there in basic--the numbers and signs associated with those words. After a second, a slight grin spread across his face as his eye scanned over the words IMPERIAL CRUSADER. Excellent. _

_ “I want the girl transferred, immediately.” His eyes continued to scan over the data before him. In his wildest dreams he never could have wished for this. He knew the girl would become a valuable asset, just as a tool to engage Galen in his work. A little toy for him to hold against the man. However, now things were changing. _

_ The work was beginning to slow, he could only imagine what would happen should Galen continue to allow it to do so. The director needed to up his game, should he want to persuade his old friend to continue his diligent and important work in the name of the empire. _

_ Not to mention, any imperial cadet with scores such as these would be a great addition to any squadron. _

_ “Transferred, Sir? I don’t quite understand.” _

_ Krennic glanced back to the old man standing beside him--a man who was a champion of continuing the old ways. A man who did not agree with non-clone troops. How strange the Directors wishes must seem to him. How strange the girl must seem. _

_ “To Scariff, of course. I wish for her to be trained as a member of my guard.” _

_ The scientist’s eyes widened, glancing from the director to the data displayed before them. “But, Sir… the girl is only a child. She has no,” he paused, searching for the correct word, “she is nothing special. She just accels in the academy. I cannot advise such a move. She would not survive.” _

_ Orson Krennic’s fists, which were dressed in his pristine white gloves, as per usual, clenched tightly at the scientist's words. His lips twitched as he fought back the scream threatening to spill from his mouth. The man did not understand longevity was not the goal here. He didn’t care much about the complications. _

_ “I am fully aware of the risks, Relik. I expect her on the next shuttle to Scariff. That is an order.” _

_ The final phase of his great revenge was in motion. _

***

In a fairer world, she would have been the one laying facedown on the ground, with a blaster wound burning a hole where her heart should have been.

It wouldn’t be the first time she deserved it, she was positive it wouldn’t be the last. 

She didn’t know either of the troopers--it was illogical for one to think she could know the identification codes for each trooper in the corps. There were more stormtroopers than stars in this galaxy, it seemed. Each trooper spent time in the Academy, but not every trooper went to the same academy. Add in her limited allowance of social interaction, she regularly entertained the notion of knowing perhaps a total ten troopers outside her squadron--if you counted commanding them to do Director Krennic’s business as ‘knowing’, that is .

Still, these troopers had known her. No doubt the latest round of gossip on her actions had spread through the imperial grapevine from Coruscant. Sometimes the gossip made way back to her, informing her of events she had apparently played a part in--or, at least, was rumored to have done so. It was a constant curiosity for her as to why they all found her such an interesting topic of discussion. She simply did her duty for the empire, nothing more and nothing less. 

Her duties merely tended to involve more ruthless action against high profile members of society and espionage than the average stormtrooper.

Had she been a normal person, she knew she would have felt guilt as soon as she pulled the trigger. She knew taking two lives, whether innocent or not, should have resonated with her in some form or fashion. However, as she stared at the bodies that lay before her, she felt nothing. The same could not be said for her companions, who wore twin horrified expressions.

Slowly, she walked towards the bodies of the troopers and began to pull off their armor. The two men remained frozen behind her--Most likely trying to dissect her reasonings for killing two of ‘her own’.

She hadn’t necessarily needed to kill these troopers. She could have trusted them to follow her directions. If they knew who she was, they knew what she was rumored to be capable of. Usually, her reputation was enough to allow her commands to carry the weight she desired of them. She would have been safe no matter what. She was an Imperial.

The same could not have been said about the Captain. She would never admit it, but he was the reason she pulled the trigger. She needed him alive. She needed to complete her mission. She needed him to believe she was a defector.

The very first time she had met him, she saw the guilt of a thousand payments to those he served weighing on his shoulders. He was ready to sacrifice her to the cause he so blindly followed, the same as she had been prepared to do to him. His face was one she was familiar with; it was the same as the one reflected back to her everyday. 

But she had an advantage over him; her kill count was a number that meant nothing to her. His shone through to her every time he looked at her, contemplating how to remove her from his side. It was a number he tried not to broadcast to those around him but he couldn’t hide it from her. Adding two more wouldn’t change anything for her. She would still be the same soldier of the empire, no matter what.

The same could not be said for him.

She had no conscious; it had been erased from her long ago. In the days before the academy, when she lived in that small white room where her only friend was the ghost of the bearded man that sometimes came to her as a dream. Director Krennic had taught her long ago that it was necessary to make sacrifices such as these in the name of the empire--in the name of greater good.

It appeared the Rebel Alliance did not teach their soldiers the same. Had they done so, the captain would have killed her when they were in hyperspace. It would have been the smart thing to do. But, instead, he had let her live. He was weak in that way. She saw it in his eyes when he looked at her. The guilt he felt as he contemplated how to dispatch of her.

His weakness was her advantage. 

***

The actions of the death trooper had been so sudden and unexpected he hadn’t been able to stop her. Had it not been for the illegal silencer she had on her pistol-- _ was it illegal if it was imperial issued? _ \--the mess she had created would have been a lot larger. 

“No,” Tivik was shaking his head, backing himself into the wall. “What have you done, girl?”

He watched as the girl quickly moved towards the troopers, beginning to make work of their suits of armor and ignoring Tivik’s words. The panels and guards quickly fell of their bodies as she hastily worked on them. He wasn’t sure what her plans were, but in this moment--for the first time in quite a while--he felt helpless.

Cassian could hear garbled com noises begin to fill the air, from the corner of his eye he saw a glimpse of white at the alley mouth. This marketplace was crawling with troopers, it would only be a matter of time before they were discovered in this alley with two dead troopers. It would only be a matter of time before more troopers advanced upon them, more troopers who wouldn’t hesitate and ask for docs,  _ again _ . 

“Don’t just stand there, Captain,” the words that came from her were amazingly void of emotion for someone who just shot two of her own in the back. “Help me.”

Quickly, he stepped forward and knelt beside the girl. Without saying anything, he began to pull the armor off the second trooper. Behind them, Tivik silently began to pace--muttering questions about how he was supposed to return home now that this had happened. He wasn’t quite sure what her plan was, but his immediate future revolved around her in that moment.

Out of the corner of his eye, Cassian looked towards the girl as she worked on removing their armor. A part of him wondered if she knew them. The other part wondered if pulling the trigger had been easy. To betray your own was a difficult thing, a fact he had learned a long while ago. He assumed, from her actions earlier that day in the hangar, she had too. Under the layers of impassivity she allowed to be seen, he could sense there were hidden depths to her she kept locked away. 

It didn’t take them long to remove the armor from the second trooper. Without words, she also began to pull the black underclothes off the trooper. He couldn’t bring himself to do the same to the dead trooper lying before him. Instead, he found himself glancing back to her--towards her single minded determination.

“Why did you do that?” The words came out of his mouth before he realized it was him speaking. 

Her hands stilled at the words and she looked to him. For the first time since their meeting in the office, a flash of emotion crossed her face--confusion. Her lips slightly parted and her brows furrowed; the first time her carefully constructed mask had fallen before him. Suddenly she held the appearance of a child being asked a question which had an obvious answer. Her head tilted to the side slightly.

“To put the blood on my hands instead.”

Her words did not give him the answer he was looking for; he wanted to ask her more. However, the sound of her voice caused him to take pause. The words had left her mouth as a whisper, an acknowledgment of the deeds he was going to commit in the face of danger.  _ Instead _ . To save him from pulling the trigger and deepening the black hole where his heart was supposed to be. 

The space between them was nonexistent as his eyes bore into her own. The expression on her face only lasted for a moment past her answer, before her face was masterfully returned to its normal stoic state. The words she had whispered rung throughout his mind as she continued her work.

Her actions continually confused him--what was the point in killing the two troopers, other than to prove a point--But what point? That she was on his side; that she wasn’t like them; that she could be trusted? Killing someone you used to side with meant little to him when your reputation as an executioner exceeded you. He would not trust her--could not trust her. He knew nothing about her, he barely knew her identification code.

This mission was slowly transforming into something he was definitely not prepared for.

***

The average trooper on patrol made rounds which involved a check-in message via com every fifteen minutes or so, based upon the pre-decided schedule set by the commanding officer of the sector. By her calculations, such a message would be due in from either of these two troopers within the next two minutes. They needed to move fast.

In sets of motions that were all too familiar to her, she began to attach the white armor to her limbs. It had been quite some time since she wore armor this color; it felt alien to her--constricting. Her own armor was tailored especially for her, designed to allow for optimal movement and precision. These sets of armor were assigned at random, given out to men in a careless manner that let the troopers know just how expendable they were in the eyes of the empire.

The armor was half coating her body before she looked to her side and realized the captain was just kneeling there, staring at her as she quickly attached the armor in place.

“Take off your clothes.”

As if being snapped from a trance, his eyes widened as he looked at her--obviously not expecting such words to come from her. In response she pointed down to the armor and black underclothes of the dead troopers that now sat before her. 

“Being found in an alley with two dead troopers is the easiest way to be killed here.”

She offered no other words to the man as she swiftly slid the last pieces of the smaller of the two sets of armor over her own clothes. Wordlessly, the captain followed her orders and quickly exchanged his clothes for those of the trooper. She glanced behind them towards the informant, who had yet to attempt an escape. He did not have a place in her current plans. 

To her right, she heard the final click of armor being locked into place. Glancing to her side, she spotted the captain completely covered in armor, save for the helmet. It was an odd look on him, she decided. She knew he felt the same. 

He leant down to reach for the white helmet and made a motion to put it on, however, before he did so, her arm shot out and stopped him. A question apparent in his eyes at the motion. She silently cursed herself for her swift reaction. The inner workings of imperial issued gear was something the empire tried to keep the Rebel Alliance in the dark about. However, keeping this rebel in the dark also meant putting herself in harm's way.

Letting out a gruff sigh, she tightened her grip on the helmet in her own hand before looking up to the Captain. Her eyes dropped to the helmet in her hands in a meaningful manner.

“The helmet’s comlink records and transmits everything.”

He seemed to understand what she was saying and he turned to face the informant, who was now staring at them with wide-eyes. She offered the informant no attention. He was expendable to her. Instead, her eyes remained trained on the Captain.

Her mind lingered on the handheld comlink in the belt at his hip, transmitting their location to the empire. For a moment, she considered telling the captain about it; he had known about the one she kept on her. Would he take notice of the one on this trooper as well? If she removed it for him, it would make her tale as a defector resonate more. 

At the end of the alley, she could hear the noises of coms growing closer. For right now, there were more important things to do.

Like leave this hellish rock with one living rebel captain.

***

It was too alien, wearing the armor. The way in which she slid it on was masterful. As if she was pulling on a second skin, the movements all too natural to her. A part of him was amazed to see her transform back into a stormtrooper so swiftly before his eyes. Another part of him was terrified to watch the armor swallow her body. 

He much preferred wearing the uniform of the dead officer to this. Very much so.

The sounds of approaching troopers was growing louder and louder, echoes of com transmissions were floating towards them. In the corner of his eye, he saw the girl--the trooper--begin to move the bodies of the dead imperial soldiers. Her victims. It was a harrowing sight. Her stoic face carrying on with business as usual. 

He wondered how many dead bodies she had disposed of like this--shoving them into a dark corner of a forgotten alleyway. He tried not to think of how he had formulated a much similar plan for her.

He would not allow himself to be added to the list.

Turning back to Tivik, the man was turning more and more agitated and nervous as every second passed. The man was ready to bolt. Cassian could not allow that to happen. Gently, he placed a hand on the man’s shoulder. 

“We really must be going.”

The informant, who had been watching their interaction with interest, glanced towards the girl before looking towards the mouth of the alley, where the troopers were beginning to assemble. She had already slid her helmet on, muffled noises could be heard from where the two men were huddled together.

“What are we doing with the girl?”

Cassian heard the question as he was fumbling around with the helmet in his hands. She had told him it recorded everything--he knew there were trackers and coms inside the helmets, but the exact specifics were lost on him. He had gone undercover as an imperial numerous times, but this was her territory. A fact he disliked very much.

The original plan had been to desert her here, after meeting with the informant. It had been a foolproof plan: Meet with Tivik, get the information, turn on her and leave her body hidden in a disposal somewhere. That way, it would have looked like a simple mugging gone wrong. It would take them days to find the body, identify her, and figure out what had happened. By the time they made all the connections, he would have been long gone.

Now, it wasn’t that simple.

The internal debate had been growing inside of him from the moment they stepped off the ship together. From his position, watching her over his shoulder as she moved through the streets, he felt as if he were seeing a whole new world from her eyes. The ways she looked at everything--from the people, to the foods and goods sold, even to the troopers--was as if she had never seen any of it before. It was as if she was seeing the world in color for the very first time. No matter how shielded her expressions where, she couldn’t hide everything.

Then she had killed for him.

He didn’t trust her, no, but he didn’t want to kill her either. There had been multiple chances for that, especially with her guard lowered the way it was. But, glancing back at her as she whispered into the comlink in her helmet, he was beginning to realize he couldn’t leave her here without risking her sharing information about their time together. It was a lose-lose.

Unless he brought her back to the ship. He was sure she knew more than she led on. Much more.

The sound of approaching stormtroopers grew louder; a quick glance over his shoulder was all he needed before he saw three more troopers walking in their direction. He quickly tossed his helmet on and hoped it was at the correct angle. As soon as he opened his eyes inside the helmet, he suddenly understood why her eyes had appeared so wild and unfocused in the office.

The helmet’s visor had some sort of visual processor. There were all different forms of informatics displayed in the corner of his eye, slightly distracting himself from the task at hand. No wonder troopers weren’t always the best shot. After a moment, his eyes had adjusted to the heads-up display and his breathing had normalized through the mask. A quick glance towards the girl left him unsurprised. She looked absolutely normal.

In a show of last moment thinking, he quickly grabbed Tivik and roughly pulled him in towards his body. If they needed to escape, they needed to make it convincing. He gabbed his blaster into the informant’s side, earning him a gruff noise of complaint. 

Without making any noise at all, the girl stepped forward and pulled restraints from the utility belt she wore. Methodically, she slipped them onto Tivik’s wrists, causing him to yelp in surprise.

“Quiet, Prisoner.” At those words, Tivik seemed to understand what Cassian wanted of him. However, his nervous twitch reemerged.

One of the approaching troopers, RF-2377 as indicated by the display in his helmet, stepped forwards towards the two first. He motioned towards Tivik. The other two troopers hung back, standing in a slightly relaxed position. However, it didn’t pass his attention that their fingers were very close to the triggers on their blasters.

“Where are you taking this prisoner?”

Tivik, for the most part, remained silent in Cassian’s rough grip. If he would have been the one planning the escape, he already knew Tivik wouldn’t have made it this far. The man was lucky. In the corner of his eye, he saw the girl step forward towards the other trooper and offer him a signal of greeting.

“He tried to steal from a vendor. He’s being taken to a holding cell.” 

Her voice was unrecognizable through the helmet. He couldn’t remember which Trooper had originally been wearing that armor, but she sounded more like them than he would have expected. He knew the helmets didn’t alter voices, so the sound caught him slightly off guard.

The trooper who had asked, the one he would guess who was in charge, walked towards Tivik and began to observe the man. After a moment, he turned back to the girl--seemingly having found nothing of interest in the informant. He nodded to her.

“Take him to section 6.”

She nodded and saluted the trooper--obviously he was a higher rank than the trooper who’s armor she wore. Cassian mirrored her salute before beginning to shove Tivik out of the alleyway, following the girl’s lead. She made no move to glance at the Troopers as they passed by them. Cassian fought the urge to watch as they continued to stand in the alley. He could only hope they did not spot the two bodies shoved into the shadows, mere feet from where they were standing.

“RF-2445, Halt.” 

Cassian’s feet suddenly became glued to the ground. From the heads-up display on his helmet’s visor, he knew that that was the codename assigned to the trooper who’s gear he now wore. Slowly, he turned to face the trooper calling to him. His grip on Tivik tightened.

“Take the prisoner in for interrogation upon arrival. We are on the search for a defecting pilot.”

The thudding of Cassian’s heart in his ears made it almost impossible to hear the commands of the trooper. The three troopers had their eyes trailed on him and Tivik; nothing seemed to be out of place to make them suspicious. The sooner they escaped this alley, the better.

“Understood.” Another salute. Another time turning his back to the troopers who could end his life in a moments notice.

More roughly than he intended, he yanked on Tivik’s arm and dragged him from the alley. The death trooper followed behind slowly, a blaster in her hands trailing Tivik. 

No one spoke for the following moments. They weaved their way through crowds, who parted for them upon first sight. No other troopers attempted to communicate with them. Through the coms in the helmet, he could hear the mindless chatter of the happenings in the sector--no one mentioned an incoming prisoner being brought into sector 6 for interrogation.

After bobbing and weaving up and down numerous random pathways for what felt like an eternity, the girl led them into another deserted alleyway. 

Wordlessly, she pulled a small vibroblade from the belt at her hip and cut the restraints off. She placed the blade back in her belt. Her helmeted head looked between Cassian and the informant, before she stepped away and moved back towards the main pathway.

Quickly, Cassian pulled his helmet off and looked at the informant. In the corner of his eye, he saw the girl watching him curiously--no doubt wondering how he planned to part ways with the Partisan. Tivik himself still seemed to be jittery from the situation they just narrowly escaped.

“Hey,” Cassian said, touching Tivik’s arm gently. His voice had lost its previous edge from the alleyway, when they last spoke,and was replaced now by a softer tone. “Calm down, Calm down. You did good. Everything you told me, it’s real?”

Tivik’s eyes flashed towards the girl. He had known Cassian for quite some time--he could see the question in his eyes. A question that had been there since her true identity was revealed to the man. It was a question the captain did not want to answer at that current moment, or anytime in the future. After a prolonged moment of silence, he turned back to Cassian.

“It’s real,” he replied, his voice mimicking that of a confused child. No doubt he was wondering where to go from here. Gently, Cassian placed a hand on the man’s shoulder.

“Return to Jedha, to your sister. But tell no one of what happened here. I will know if you do.” The informant seeme to understand the implied threat in Cassian’s words. Tivik wasn’t a dangerous man, but he was a clueless one. And cluelessness could get a man killed in times as tense as these. Letting this informant go was a risky move, but he had no plans of killing more than one person that day.

The informant nodded. He said a word of thanks. Then, he disappeared from the alley; leaving Cassian alone with the trooper.

He turned to her, staring at the blank mask for much longer than intended. The noises of the busy streets of Kafrene crashed into his ears but he registered none of it. It was only the two of them in that moment. The rebel captain and his death trooper defector.

The hunter and the prey.

In that moment, Cassian was not sure which role he fell into.

Without a word, he slid his helmet on and made way towards the end of the alleyway, where a fire escape was attached to the side of the building. The girl lurked on behind him--a silent shadow.

His grip on the blaster in his hand tightened. He grabbed a hold of the ladder and began his ascent.

***

The cityscape of the Ring of Kafrene wasn’t a magnificent sight by any means.

In her years of service to the empire, DT-4227 had visited a vast number of planets. Her reasonings for traveling from planet to planet had always varied: kill this dignitary, infiltrate this ring, gather intel on this sector of the empire. Every mission required her to focus solely on the task at hand, to pay no mind to her surroundings. Pausing to admire the view would result in only one thing: allowing an opportunity for the opponent to strike.

The early days of her time as an imperial, dating back to when her limited scope of memories began, she remembered the holo-images of planets that would be shown to her during her schooling. The intent was to educate her on the systems of the empire. What it really did was expose her to the vast wonders of the galaxy. 

Since those early days she had made sure to keep track of all the planets she visited. A list she had kept in her black armored utility belt until the captain had raided her stocks. She didn’t much mind he had taken the physical copy. She had stared at it in the darkness of the night so often it was ingrained in her mind. In all her years of space travel, she had yet to visit the planet on the top of her list.

Perhaps, she thought as she stared out into the smog coated cityscape laid out before her, one day she could.

Behind her she could hear the captain fumbling with something in his hands, most likely his personal com. Once they had escaped that alley and climbed to the top of the conglomerate of buildings, he had mentioned something about wanting to contact his droid to get him to prepare the ship. 

She didn’t mind the hold up. It was another moment to herself in which she could pretend none of the events of the previous day had occurred. On the tops of the roof, alone with only the captain, it was easy to allow her carefully constructed guard to fall.

After a moment she noticed that the captain’s fumbling had stopped. A chill surrounded her, even as she was still coated in her stolen armor. It was a chill she was all too familiar with--a feeling accompanied by death. However, usually she was the bringer of such a chill. Slowly, she turned to face the captain.

The man, Cassian, had taken his helmet off as soon as they had reached the top of the building--before he had attempted to make contact with the droid. No doubt the man had found the helmet suffocating. The feeling of confinement within the armor had sent many trained troopers into panicked fits. His unmasked eyes stared blankly towards her, the stolen blaster raised to her chest.

In all reality, she was surprised she had made it this far. In her opinion, she hadn’t been a completely convincing defector. Maybe she should have shown more emotion in her actions, in her words. Maybe she should have offered up more imperial secrets to the man, in order to gain his trust. Maybe she should have been more human. 

For her, however, it was hard to pretend to be something you never were. The captain really should have just killed her as soon as they left Coruscant.

Slowly, as if repeating her actions from the day before--in the office upon their first meeting, she reached up and removed the helmet from her head with a click. His hand tightened on the blaster.

“I can not allow you to leave here.” There was no emotion in his words or on his face--the words of a true spy. 

The helmet she was gripping fell to the ground as she loosened her grip. Without looking from Cassian, she let herself fall to her knees. Even when she had received her mission briefing from Director Krennic, she had felt like this mission was a lost cause. Her first clue had been the lack of extraction plan.

The second had been the cold look in his eye as he turned from her, leaving her alone in his office as he took the rest of her squadron off planet. It was no secret that she had been his favorite for quite some time. But with powerful men like Director Krennic, it was easy to fall from graces with no reason at all. For whatever reason, she had lost her usefulness to him. Either that, or he viewed her sacrifice as being a necessity as the began the final stages of the Death Star.

This realization was what had made killing her fellow imperials an easy decision. DT-4227 did not fear death; but she was not above attempting to prolong it. Even though the Director had sent her on this mission with no expectations for her survival, that didn’t mean she wouldn’t try. Succeeding for him was her only goal in life, her only purpose. If she could not, the rebel spy might as well take her life.

“What was your purpose saving me,” he continued on, his voice still void of emotion but simultaneously begging for answers. “Why are you here?”

“I don’t know. That moment, in the hangar, I saw you laying there and just decided I couldn’t let you die.” She could see in his eyes that he wasn’t believing her. Her tone was too blank, her eyes too insincere. 

“You know too much. I can’t let you leave here.” 

Her eyes flashed towards him in that moment, something passing through them. For a split second, she felt something alien to her. She felt relief.

Her eyes shifted from him towards the cityscape. It looked more magnificent through her own eyes--something she would have not expected to think about a place such as this. A pregnant silence filled the air for a long moment.

“My entire purpose in life has been to serve the empire. I’m nothing but a soldier; I like to tell myself I would be difficult to replace, that my reputation sets me apart.” She fell silent for a moment, her throat suddenly feeling constricting. She had meant to lie to him. However, the words falling from her mouth were more truths than she had ever shared with anyone before.

But, in reality, after so many years living the life she did, she wasn’t sure she understood what the difference between lying and being honest was.

***

She looked small before him, knelt into the dirty rooftop. The helmet was at her side and her hair was wild. In that moment, she looked more vulnerable than he had seen her in their short acquaintance. 

It had taken him quite some time to build the strength to pull the blaster on her. She was an enigma. A part of Cassian wanted to dig deeper and discover what she held hidden under the surface; to find her secrets and unmask all she had to tell. The other, more rational side, knew she had to be disposed of immediately. She was dangerous. She killed with no regret. That alone made her a larger threat than anything else.

So, Cassian had done what any rational spy would have done. He pulled a blaster on her as she stood with her back to him, observing the view before her.

At this point he didn’t much care if she truly was a defector, or if she was merely playing him in some twisted imperial plot. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was returning to Base One with the information he had obtained on the imperial weapon. Time was of the essence. He didn’t have time for trivial matters such as a confusing little imperial girl playing soldier.

He tightened his grip on the blaster in his hand.

“I can’t return to the empire after having killed my own men; the empire isn’t a holy entity, but they don’t taken lightly to transgressions such as that.” Her voice sounded as it had in the office upon their first encounter: rough and quiet, unaccustomed to life outside the mask. “I’m nothing to them.”

Dull green eyes lifted and met his. “But I can be something to you.” The words were a whisper in the wind, so soft he almost wasn’t sure he heard them correctly.

It was hard to take anything she said at face value. From his very limited knowledge of the training that death troopers went through, he knew that intensive psychological training was involved. He himself had been trained in manipulation. Cassian also had learned, in his short life, to never trust a pretty face.

They were nothing but trouble.

Her plan was too obvious. She knew too much. She had watched him free Tivik, heard the information about Jedha, heard about the scientist--Erso. It was all too much; information she could transmit back to the empire. It’s what he would have done had he been in her place.

There were two options: Kill her or bring her along. Originally he had intentions of only going through with the first option. But their encounter had dragged on for too long. He had allowed her to worm her way into his thoughts. He had allowed her blank stares-- _ that look of relief as he aimed the blaster at her _ \--to bring up his own memories of service to the rebellion.

Cassian was not a soft man. In fact, he had a reputation of being the exact opposite. But as she knelt there, offering herself to him, something in him broke. Just this once, he would allow someone else to make the decision to take a life. Maker, he could throw her in a cell for the rest of eternity. At this point, his mind was already made up.

For the second time that day, Cassian found himself reaching forward and restraining her hands. He made sure to reach into her utility belt and remove the personal comlink stored there. 

As he gripped her arm and pulled her away from the ledge of the building, the only thing he could think was:  _ Kay is going to murder me. _

***

Some days, Kay-Tu really wished he had never been reprogrammed.

Life as an imperial droid hadn’t been all that bad. Of course, Cassian  _ did _ delete most of his internal hard drive memory during the reprogramming process, so his recollections might not have been perfect, but he knew how the average imperial droid operated. And they had it pretty easy.

Compared to some of the nonsense Cassian asked him to do, like pilot around a deadly little girl because his human thought she was  _ pretty _ , sitting around a databank or even being blown apart by partisans on a distant outer rim planet didn’t sound that bad. In fact, it almost sounded relaxing.

As he watched Cassian limp back to the ship, no doubt re-injuring the leg that had been shot, Kay found it hard to restrain his disdain. Not only had Cassian been two hours later than expected, but he was outfitted in imperial stormtrooper armor--the helmet missing but the rest intact. Following behind him was exactly what the droid did not want to see--the girl wearing the exact same outfitted armor.

The droid tried to make his already expressionless droid face even more blank as his friend--no, not friend in this moment, comrade--slowly made his way up the ramp of the ship. The captain purposefully avoided the gaze of the droid, most likely knowing what response he would fine there.  _ Good _ .

He slowly, painfully, dropped his body onto the bench that sat in the center of the cargo hold. Kay kept his eyes on Cassian the entire time. He paid no mind to the girl as she boarded the ship behind him. The captain slowly began to peel the armor from his body, avoiding making eye contact with anyone as he did so.

Wordlessly, the girl walked away from the man and the droid--as far away from the two as possible. Her hands were bound together, an eerily similar image compared to before they had departed to meet the informant. She gracefully dropped back into the same corner as before, curling her body into itself.

Kay steeled his gaze on the Captain.

“Why is the death trooper not dead.”

Today was one of those days.


End file.
